An Agitated Peace
by coalhaus
Summary: He was a Slytherin and she was a Ravenclaw. He was a Death Eater and she was a mudblood. He went down fighting and she kept on living. About a boy and a girl who were never meant to be together, and the brief moments of happiness they found in each other as the world around them began to unravel... Prequel to Interception and story version of Fighter. Evan Rosier/Florence
1. Chapter 1

When Evan Rosier was young, younger than he was now even, he'd had a habit of running off to the library with his paints and his parchments and hiding away in his imagination at the first sight of strife. It was therefore no great tragedy to him when his older brothers eventually went off to Hogwarts one by one and when his father began to drift from his mother for longer and longer periods of time, for the chances of arguments, scoldings and teasing went from high to none during those precious ten months out of the year. But then the inevitable happened... for he grew older as children often do, and one day Evan found himself turning away rather coldly from his mother's stiff embrace and his younger sister's well-practiced tears as he took up his trunk to board the _Hogwarts Express_ along with all of his older brothers for the very first time.

At this stage in Evan's life, his brothers had gone from rambunctious, rude little boys to devilish, turbulent, nasty adolescents. Evan found that he was surprised to see how different school life was from home life. He was also surprised by how generally unpopular he and everybody else he knew seemed to be amongst the general student body... he'd always known about mudbloods and half bloods of course, but he'd hardly understood just how many of them there were! It seemed every time they passed a new face, one of his brothers would scowl or mutter an insult under his breath. And the Sympathizers! How could they be so brazen? Weren't they ashamed to associate so openly with all the riffraff? Did their parents know? Of course, everybody had heard about Andromeda Black who had gone off and eloped with a mudblood just this past summer, and nobody had suspected a thing... so perhaps the parents didn't know what went on away from home. Evan certainly recognized more than a few faces from the usual social events he was always dragged to... But here they were, all four Rosier boys, innocently walking by whilst receiving the dirtiest looks imaginable as they passed through the train in search of an empty compartment, even from people they knew (at least by name). Well! They could stare all they bloody wanted, Evan thought viciously. If he wasn't of their close acquaintance already after eleven long years of existence, they certainly weren't worth getting to know now.

Finally they found themselves a compartment full of familiar voices and faces, and it was with great relief that Evan finally managed to worm himself away from his brothers, who'd delighted in tormenting him during the walk by threatening dire consequences should he be sorted into any other house than Slytherin. He observed silently as they found their friends and settled down, leaving him to his own devices at the far end of the compartment where it seemed the younger students were amassed. He was immediately flanked by several girls and boys his own age, all of whom looked haughtier than the last. He greeted them all coolly by name, reserving most of his attention for those he knew were to be in his year. There were the gawky Macnair twins, Walden and Caroline, both tall and dark with identical sullen looks. The auburn-haired one with the frosty expression and the glittering grey eyes was Christian Avery, sitting there next to the wiry, dirty-blonde Nicolas Mulciber with the grey-blue eyes. Thick as thieves, those two... Evan knew immediately that he was going to have to keep extra locking charms on his trunk the second he spotted them. He gritted his teeth. Then there were the Blacks, Sirius and Narcissa, whom Evan was constantly reminded were distant cousins of important standing on this side of the Channel. He'd been specifically instructed to play nice with those two, particularly Sirius, the eldest male and heir to the Black line. The cousins were as opposite as night and day in both colouring and personality, though they shared a certain charming allure that everybody knew just screamed of 'Black'. Sirius Black was just getting up as Evan had come in, announcing with a loud yawn that he was "going to go exploring" as he slipped out of the compartment without so much as a by-your-leave. The boys nodded at each other with the usual distant reserve as they slipped past each other. And that one there, coming in from the other side of the compartment... who in the hell was that?

All eyes immediately looked up at the sound of the compartment door opening and the atmosphere suddenly became noticeably chillier, though none of the Rosiers were familiar with the small, sour white face that stared at them with a look of shaky defiance from under a pile of overly large robes.

"Who are you then?" Alex barked, seeing that nobody was going to say anything to the strange boy. Despite this, for a second, silence continued to ring loudly throughout the compartment. Then, the air was filled with jeers, even as the boy announced stiffly, "Severus Snape".  
>He was overpowered by the others shouting "half blood Prince" and their cruel laughter, and without quite knowing why, Evan found himself joining in. There was just something about the boy that he didn't like... perhaps it was the pathetic looking way that he stood there before making the decision to continue his way through the compartment to reach the other side, even as he was jostled by the third year boys in Felix's year who were closest to the door. They pushed and shoved him all throughout the compartment, giving great kicks at his already shabby trunk, bellowing with laughter all the while. At last, he reached Evan's end of the compartment, and the girls squealed and laughed at his greasy hair while Mulciber, MacNair and Avery shoved him out the door, sending his trunk flying after him. Evan shuddered at the mere thought of even touching the boy or his belongings - filthy could hardly describe it.<p>

It took a good ten minutes for the compartment to settle down after _that_, during which it was explained to the Rosier boys who exactly the Severus Snape boy was.

"Eileen Prince's son," said one of the older girls as she sniffed distastefully at the name. "If you boys lived here during the summers, you would know them sure enough. The nerve of that woman! Did you know she tried to bring him into _Parson's_ the other day? Mother was there with Aunt Lydia and they said Eileen Prince just about begged _her_ old mother for some money to pay for his school things! We haven't any idea of how she managed to get into the place, but mother thinks the Princes must not have thought of removing her from their membership. Well, you can see that poor Loretta Prince didn't giver a knut - she walked off as if she hadn't even seen her, but Aunt Lydia says her face was whiter than a ghost's. Of course, you can't blame her for that. She probably didn't expect Eileen to dare show her face _there_! And after all these years! Mother says she hasn't seen Eileen Prince since she off and eloped. If _my_ only child had run off with some mudblood nobody, I can tell you I would have done worse than disown her, and I certainly wouldn't have forgotten to cut all her membership privileges!"

The compartment suddenly fell silent for a second and all eyes shifted to Narcissa Black, whose normally pale, angelic face was glowing red with shame.

"Oh you poor thing," said the girl who'd been talking with a faux smile of sympathy. "You know we don't hold it against _you_!"

Narcissa's face suddenly went pale again and she sniffed furiously, though she didn't exhibit her anger as openly as she might have.

"Nor should you. I'm perfectly aware of Andie - Andromeda's failure and I've had nothing to do with it whatsoever."

But before the matter could be discussed further at hand, a loud cracking noise followed by the sound of some sort of commotion echoed through the compartment from the other side of the door closest to Evan and the other first years, and the Macnair twins immediately sprang up and peered through the glass window to see what was going on.

"There's a duel!" Caroline shrieked in excitement without daring to turn around for a second lest she miss any of the fight. She and her brother elbowed each other violently to get the best view out of the tiny square window. "It's the Snape boy! Oh, and that's Sirius! But... he's upside down! And - and I think that's James Potter who's just put a hex on Snape!"

Immediately, Narcissa threw open the door, shoving both Macnairs out of the way with considerable force, but Lucius Malfoy made his way over from the other side of the compartment with just as considerable speed. "Stay here," he said firmly to Narcissa, dragging her away from the door by the back of her robes. She who looked away reproachfully, but said nothing and allowed Lucius to pass.

"What's going on here?" they heard Lucius barking in his best 'I'm-Head-Boy-Now' voice.

Evan sat back down. Now that Lucius had interfered, there was nothing more to see, though he could certainly hear Sirius Black and another boy, who was undoubtedly James Potter, shouting and using the most insulting, foul words he'd ever heard come out of the mouths of young children. It was all directed at Severus Snape from what they could tell, though occasionally a girl's voice would cut in, using an equivalent tone and even worse series of words than those that were spewed out of Black's and Potter's respective mouths with their well-bred accents. It was all really quite exciting for Evan's first exposure to Hogwarts, and they hadn't even arrived at the school yet!

* * *

><p>Three years passed in much the same way for Evan and the others. It seemed that first day of school had set the tone for the rest of their Hogwarts careers, though if someone had asked Evan on the train who his dorm mates would be, he hardly would have suggested Severus Snape. And yet it was Snape and not Sirius Black who found himself gracing the Slytherin dungeons every night, making friends with some of the school's most illustrious students. He'd even been grudgingly welcomed in amongst their set beceause of his prowess with dark spells, though they certainly sniggered about him behind his back. As for Black... he'd gone off to becoming blood-traitor riffraff like his cousin Andromeda, and poor Narcissa Black hadn't said a word to him since whispering "see you in Slytherin" before walking away from him towards the Sorting Hat three years ago. Indeed, one could say that Sirius Black had died for all that he was acknowledged by Slytherin House... he was even undeserving of the jeers and hexes that his friends, Potter, Lupin and Pettigrew were forced to endure on a near-daily basis (though they certainly gave as good as they got). All in all, however, things for Evan were rather uneventful... at least, they were as uneventful as could possibly be at a school of magic.<p>

But all that changed in the blink of an eye on one cold night in December when there was not a peep to be heard, not even from a mouse... Of course, Evan prided himself on the fact that he was smart enough not to make a peep whilst prowling the school corridors past curfew during the Holidays.

And so did a certain someone else.

That someone else was one Florence Kim, and until that third night of the Christmas holidays in third year, Evan Rosier had not even been aware of her name.

Alright, that was an exaggeration... he'd made a point of finding out who the school's resident mudbloods were and of avoiding them at all costs, but it was certainly difficult to miss the scrawny, sullen Ravenclaw of foreign origins with the slanted eyes who'd first arrived at Hogwarts with a cringe-worthy gutter accent courtesy of muggle London's finest tower blocks. But the point was, he'd hardly ever associated with her had she? She wasn't in his social circles, she wasn't glitzy and popular like the other admittedly well-bred mudblood in their year, Lily Evans, and she hardly made a ripple in the school's gossip mill, so she remained well under his radar for the better part of three years... until, of course, he tripped over her as she was tying her shoelace in the dark, silent depths of the school library's Restricted Section on that cool night in December. Evan was convinced to this very day that if he hadn't fallen, she would never have had the chance to throw up a shield charm, and would have instead been found paralyzed the next day by some wandering student, just as he'd intended. She always countered with the opinion that if he he hadn't been holding his "nose up in the air like a right snob, even in the dark", he probably would have seen her crouched on the floor... unless, she would add with a baiting sneer, his _lumos_ was so weak that he couldn't see past the end of his perfectly posh little nose.

He always punished her for that... for, loathe as he was to admit it, he and Florence Kim had gone on to develop a quasi-working relationship of sorts, highly illegal as it was, and very often she deserved to be 'corrected' for her insolence. Their acquaintance began as they'd spent the better part of the holidays that year getting to know each other against their wills whilst clearing out an old storage room for the late caretaker, whom everybody had called the Beast. The Beast had caught them red-handed in the library thanks to Florence's shield charm, which had deflected a curse from Evan's wand and sent it flying into the nearest bookshelf. Though the shelves were charmed put, half the books had been blasted into the air and it was a wonder that they'd survived the "accident". Some of them still bore scorch marks, though Madame Pince's innumerable spells had saved them from the greater part of permanent damage. Still. They'd been punished severely for the trespass, and had spent a solid ten days in confinement with only each other for company. Worse, they'd been forced to go without wands, scrubbing and dusting every corner of the immense old storage room that the Beast had discovered whilst prowling after Peeves that very same night. It'd been a mess of old, moth eaten textbooks, broken instruments and beds, and an assortment of antique school uniforms, all of which were dumped in the room without order throughout what seemed to have been the long-eighteenth century... indeed, judging by the most 'modern' items in the room, the place seemed to have been forgotten sometime in the early 1800s. It was not hard to see why, for it was a cleverly hidden room that had only revealed itself when the Beast had accidentally sunk both feet simultaneously into a trick stair in a rarely-used corridor off the fifth floor, and had pulled on a certain beam in the handrail for support at the exact same time. Much to his astonishment, a portrait featuring a sleeping fox on the wall adjacent to the step had swung open, revealing the filthy chamber at the end of a small corridor. It was just as he was coming out of the room that he'd suddenly been alerted to the library trespass by Peeves himself, who was more delighted at the prospect of screaming "STUDENTS OUT OF BED" than having the Beast chase him any longer. The Beast had immediately set Florence and Evan to clearing it out the next day after he'd taken a look and pocketed what little trinkets looked to be of value. When the Beast died of a heart attack later that spring, knowledge of the room died with him. Only Evan and Florence remembered its existence, and it was because of that room that they were forced to come to an agreement of some sort.

Florence had always longed for a private place to call her own, and the second she'd stepped into the storage room, she knew she'd found it. But Evan was there to ruin it all. Always. As if he didn't already have everything one could possibly want in life, he had to go and seize her room too. She found him painting there on more than one occasion, and he always shoved her up against a wall in rage, either with a spell or occasionally with his own sheer body weight... she learned that he hated nothing more than mudbloods, and being watched as he painted. The two things combined made him blind with anger.

Of course, she was no helpless miss, and she always fought back, having much experience with the sort of physical violence that came from being part of a family who hated having an "abnormal freak bitch" for a daughter. It was ironic, she always thought, how much she was hated at home for being magical, because in the magical world, there were people like Evan who hated her for not being "magical enough". And so she struggled against him as best as she could whenever he held her up or whenever they dueled, but he played hard and he did not play fair... he'd never forgiven her for throwing him off his game that night at the Library, and even less so for ruining his purpose for being there, for he'd been on a very important private mission. To this very day, he would not reveal to her what it was. Not that she cared.

No... Florence did not give two whits what Evan Rosier was up to in the library in the dark of the night. At least, she didn't at first, until she quickly realized that there was a potential for profit in what he did. And that was how their little relationship grew beyond their little spats over Room privileges.

Whenever he was not painting in her Room (and it was hers, goddammit!), he was always up to some sort of secretive spell-making or practicing, or brewing some foul smelling potion or other. Sometimes she wondered if he had friends, but then the question would fly out of her mind whenever she spotted him in the Great Hall, coolly holding court with the other Slytherins in their year. Perhaps 'friends' was the wrong word for it, but he was certainly popular as far as Slytherin boys went. He was good looking and cold, but not as openly brutish as Walden Macnair, as sneaky as Avery and Mulciber, as dour as Snape or as stupid as Bryce Gibbon. Florence rather thought this made him worse than the others, for she knew perfectly well he got up to his no-good on the sly rather than upfront... no one who'd crossed him could say they hadn't been met with some form of revenge eventually, even if they didn't always realize it _was_ revenge (she understood quickly that he was a fan of the 'vengeance is a dish best served cold' party). But who was she to say anything about it? She could hardly care less how he settled his spats or with whom. She was going to make a lot of money off of him if she played her cards right. And played them right she did.

Florence was a shrewd sort of girl. She was a Ravenclaw for a reason after all. She knew she needed to make as much money as possible, as soon as possible, because the second she graduated from Hogwarts, her parents were not going to cease offering her a single quid. Indeed, they hardly offered her a pence nowadays anyhow, but she knew that without the demanding presence of Hagrid to enforce her attendance at school every year, they wouldn't have even given her those few precious notes to pay for her wand and old-new schoolbooks. It was up to her, then, to figure out her future on her own... and it came in the form of the tall, foreboding young wizard by the name of Evan Rosier.

It was precisely because he was always up to no good in that little room whenever he wasn't busy painting that she figured out how to get to him. At first, it had been a matter of staking her presence as at least a "co-owner" of the room if he wasn't going to let it alone. But then she saw her moment of opportunity, and out of nowhere, genius struck. Without knowing what had possessed her, she offered him a deal he couldn't resist, because as okay as it was to test one's spells and potions on an army of scrawny insects and rats, a human test subject was simply the gold standard... and it was exactly what she offered him. As long as he could test and prove the soundness of his magic on an animal first, and provided there was no permanent mental, emotional or physical effects involved, she would allow him to practice on her. In exchange, he would pay her an agreed-upon sum for each spell or potion, though she decided immediately that she would take charge of brewing antidotes... for while it took a certain kind of magic to make dark spells work, it required another kind altogether to make healing magic happen. And as horrible as Florence was at aggressive magic, as proven by her repeated failures at dueling Evan, charms and potions and herbology happened to be her specialty.

It was almost a harmonious relationship.

Almost.

Because they both had short tempers. And short tempers meant duels, and duels meant disrupted work, and disrupted work meant no pay. No pay meant that Florence had to learn to hold her tongue, and more often than not she had to seethe in silence as she bore the grunt of Evan's disgust and haughtiness in regards to her person. This led her to resent him, and though they dueled less often towards the end of fourth year for he quickly got bored of throwing her about like a useless rag doll, the few duels they _did_ engage in became that much more explosive because they both began to experiment with magic that slightly veered over the line of legal. Florence favoured difficult charms which required time to muster, but once done correctly, tended to result in a win. Of course, most times she found herself sprawled on her back, wincing in pain as Evan stormed away from her to return to his work, muttering about wasted time and stupid mubloods... he had a rather larger repertoire than she of quick-acting spells which were much more aggressive and put up too much interference to allow her to work any of the charms she would have liked. And so after lying on the floor, winded, she would simply sit up and make her way over to her usual desk at the opposite end of the room, and they would work in absorbed silence. It was utterly astonishing how few words they actually exchanged over the course of an entire year and a half, in relation to the number of hours spent in each other's company. And the words they _did _use were often the same handful of insults (mostly from Evan... Florence didn't dare try his patience for fear of not getting paid), for it soon became clear that what they lacked in temper, they made up for in stubbornness. Besides Evan's voice working spells, sometimes they went entire sessions in utter silence.

But of course it was not possible to go on for so long without getting to know one another in some capacity, and to some extent, the things that they _did_ learn about each other by mere absorption turned out to be much more dangerous to the psyche than the things that they did _not_ learn about each other by using words like normal human beings in a social setting. For instance, Evan learned (but did not remark upon the fact, because he didn't care) that Florence did not go home for the holidays. Ever. He also learned that she must get very little sleep, for she was forever irritating him by yawning and rubbing her eyes, which constantly had dark puffy circles under them. One time he even realized she'd been wearing the same rumpled uniform three days in a row because there was a very specific stain on the back by the shoulder seams that she'd obviously not noticed but that had been irritating him since the second he'd spotted it on day one. He'd commented on _that_ with an appalled, disgusted sneer, but he'd been curious to find that instead of a cool retort as he'd expected, she merely looked back at him with a strangely pathetic look on her face that immediately brought Severus Snape and the first _Hogwarts Express_ ride to mind. He forgot that she was doing this for the money sometimes. It was odd to think of somebody actually being so poor. He realized too through plain observation that the other girls in Ravenclaw were not good to her... one day she actually admitted that they were always taking her things and hiding them away, though it was not so much of a personal confession as it was a rant peppered with expletives when she realized her last scroll of parchment had disappeared out of her bag... and Hogsmeade wasn't for another two weeks!

It was then that he began to notice her out of the corner of his eye as a fellow student, rather than simply as a test subject, outside of their storage room meetings. It was true that she was unpopular as far girls went. While the other fifth year mudblood, Lily Evan_s_, seemed to soar despite her lesser blood status, Florence Kim tended to shrink into the shadows. And when she didn't, she was dragged out into the glaring light by her fellow Ravenclaws who sniggered silently at her in that condescending, priggish, Ravenclawish way by making her look a fool in classes or tripping her up in front of professors. But, if one thing had to be said about her, she was never silent about her torture. She always got back at them, even if it was in a secretive, underhanded, Slytherin sort of way that Evan was horrified to one day find that he was silently proud of. The day _that_ happened, he immediately understood that it was time to nip the sentiment in the bud before it developed into anything further. He ceased returning to the Room for a much needed purge... he'd spent too much time with the damn mudblood, that much was obvious.

The things Florence noticed about Evan were much of the same stock. She knew when he was in a bad mood if he swore under his breath in French, his native language. If he was in a good mood, he'd occasionally smoke a cigarette or a joint pilfered from one of his older brothers as long as he wasn't working on a potion (so as not to contaminate anything with the fumes), or he might munch on a few snack cakes if he was. She'd been highly amused to discover he had a sweet tooth. It somehow didn't suit his icy personality to be sitting there, lazily casting a mind-mist curse on her whilst devouring a chocolate-strawberry puffeskein, which were his favourites. Another thing she discovered was that he liked to twirl his wand and his paint brushes. The second he had a spare moment, whatever he had in his hand would be twirling around in between his elegant fingers as he pursued some deep thought or other. She also knew that he could be cruel, as well as kind in his own strange way... if he wanted to make her hurt, he did, and sometimes she knew (especially when he was upset), he enjoyed watching her suffer, though she understood it wasn't so much her pain that he enjoyed at as much as it was his own power, for sometimes he brought her immense pleasure and he had the same look of cool satisfaction on his face... though privately she thought the pleasure spells were somehow so much worse than the physically painful ones. It was like being high up in a lovely world where everything was perfect and so worry-free, and then being forced to endure a grueling return to reality where everything was dull and depressing and hurt... Sometimes she even cried when he stopped a spell, unable to help herself due to the shock of going from Paradise to Hell within the blink of an eye. She would find herself curled up into a little ball on the cold stone floor, sobbing nastily, sometimes completely unaware of him leaning coolly against a wall, taking notes on her reactions or perhaps sprawled out on one of the old beds, silently watching her hysterics as tendrils of blue-grey smoked curled up into the air. And in that way he was cruel. But it was in that way that he was kind too, for though he never bothered to soothe her, he also never brought it up or commented on it. She imagined she would have died of shame if he did. Instead, he would simply watch and wait. And when she was done and her sobs quieted down to little gasps, he would hand her a cigarette and a little velvet coin-sack filled with precious galleons, a good sum of those precious golden pieces that would pave the way for her future. She didn't dare think it was out of pity that he cut deeper than he had to into his monthly allowance.

Then, about three months into fifth year, his presence in the Room became spotty, and by the end of December she realized he no longer graced the place with his presence at all. And then she panicked.

She was used to meeting him at least twice a month, but it had been a good five weeks since she'd last seen him in private and after a rapid calculation, she knew that unless they continued to meet, she would be broke about three months out of seventh year if she considered the next two years' worth of school materials into her budget. She tried to think of ways to get his attention, but it was simply not to be done. Addressing him in public was out of the question... if he didn't strangle her on sight, somebody else certainly would. Nor could she send him an owl - they'd been careful to never leave a paper trail of their going-ons, and she would hardly dare risk Azkaban over the matter. But he would not look at her! He didn't so much as breathe in her bloody direction! And loathe as she was to admit it, it damn well irked her to find that he was removed from her life as suddenly as he had entered it.

Only that was a dangerous thought to tread, and she dared not think it again. Florence Kim was nothing if not a prudent girl... The second she realized half the reason why she was so upset, she immediately set her mind to wiping Evan Rosier out of her body, mind and soul, because worse than having no money was falling for a boy like _that_ and being ruined over it. And the sooner she could get over what was clearly a state of infatuation resulting from being ignored, the sooner she could go back to thinking about him as one thing only, and that was a Bank.

Of course, even for smart bookish Ravenclaws, infatuations are not things that one can simply think oneself out of... they come and they go, and sometimes they come back again with a vengeance. Evan Rosier knew that better than anybody.

Now, what nobody knew about the Rosier clan was that they were a very special breed of people, and breed was the correct choice of terminology for they were directly descended from the infamous incubus known even amongst muggles as simply Rosier, patron demon of tainted love and seduction.

Well, he certainly wasn't a demon, though Evan could see why some brainless muggles might go and mistake a wizard for something of the sort. Especially an incubus wizard. It was like trying to blame a half-wit for being a half-wit; muggles were obviously simply born daft. Though they certainly hadn't gotten the tainted love and seduction part of it wrong... As soon as he'd hit puberty, which had happened to him later in life than for most other boys because of his incubus blood, Evan had discovered that females of all shapes and sizes were naturally drawn to him, even if it wasn't always in a sexual manner. They simply liked the "resonance of his voice" as one silly girl had put it, or his "cheeky little smirk" as one of his mother's friends had exclaimed over tea one afternoon. Naturally, his brothers had all warned him about it, but they hadn't said how bloody irritating it all was! He didn't complain when he was feeling randy of course, which was often at this stage in life and even oftener than was normal because of what he was, but sometimes he wanted to scream for all the fawning and sneaky googly eyes he was drawing from the girls at school, even from the younger ones or the halfbloods and mudbloods who had no right to look at him in such a manner, let alone wish to find themselves in a secluded room with him as one girl had dared to profess. He'd given her a good hex for that one.

Then, the Projecting began, and the first time Evan Projected had probably been the most frightening experience of all his sixteen years, not that he was going to ever admit that, thank you very much. It was about a week or two into fifth year, and he'd woken up stark bloody naked without a stitch of clothing to his name, not even his wand, and for an entire two seconds he'd actually panicked, only just managing to strangle a shout of shock before giving it the chance to slip out of his lips.

It was a strange experience to say in the last, finding himself floating about like a naked ghost in the Slytherin girl's dorm, whose occupants were all in a deep slumber. It took him a few minutes to get a hang of the whole weightless feeling that seemed to come with Projecting. But he'd touched down to the ground and looked around once he was comfortably on his feet again, when it occurred to him that he could simply go back to his dorm. It was like apparating, his brothers had said. Nothing to it. Well, he didn't officially have his apparating license yet, but all Rosier boys were trained in it from an early age precisely because Projections could occur prior to the age of sixteen, and apparating was an easy way of learning how to manage one's Projections. So he did. And all of a sudden he woke up in his proper body in his own bed, gasping for breath as though he'd been drowned. Yes, his brothers had told him about that part too. And that was Projection. Simple, easy stuff. Occasionally it was even fun if he found he'd Projected to one of his 'daytime' girls, usually Lucille Devalle or Doreen Weiss, in which case all he had to do was wake the girl up by breathing on her (well, he didn't have to but the thought of shagging a sleeping girl made him feel creepier than the thought of breathing on her face, and being linked to them as an incubus kept them in slumber otherwise). And if he managed to convince them he was a dream, they were usually more than happy to play along as they would by "day" when he hooked up with them in his normal body, though one time Doreen had shot up and stared at him with such alarm that Evan had to put her back to sleep with another loathsome breath attack.

But then one day, something had changed and he did not find himself in the now-familiar terrain of the Slytherin girls' dormitory, or even the less familiar sixth-year Hufflepuff dorm which was inhabited by another occasional fling, Jillian Knowles. He recognized with sudden alarm upon spotting a horribly familiar book bag and with a great sentiment of dread that he was currently most undoubtedly in Ravenclaw Tower, fifth year girl's dorm.

Before he knew what he was doing, Evan found himself pulling aside the thick, velvet curtains of the four-poster bed at the end of the room. The shabby little book bag was sitting on the even shabbier trunk pushed up against it. The bed gave off that familiar strange little vibe of sorts that made all the other beds in the room seem colourless in a way. It was like a magnetic pull that made everything else go flat. He knew without bothering to touch that if he tried to put his hand on any of the other curtains, he'd simply go right through them. Though he was used to this sentiment from all his other Projections, it in no way comforted him. And so he had made a beeline for the last bed, hand outstretched, knowing full well who he was going to find within it. And he was not wrong.

His heart sunk to his stomach before shooting up again and pressing against his throat, ready to be regurgitated.

If Florence Kim was not a pretty little princess by day, she certainly looked more attractive by night, illuminated just a touch by the glow of the waning silver moon that sneaked in past the open drapes... though he'd still be hard-pressed to call her a beauty, he told himself coolly. He remarked with some astonishment the development of a woman's chest that rose and fell with each deep, slumbering breath, which he knew from years of throwing her about against doors and such were a new development since fourth year. He noted with equal surprise that there was a face behind that ever-present curtain of limp dark hair which was so often in her face that it was a wonder she could see or breathe. Well. It wasn't so bad a face as that, he was horrified to find himself thinking. There was some acne, and her eyebrows could do with a plucking, he thought quite critically... but she had plump lips and high cheekbones and perhaps with a nice haircut and some makeup she could actually be quite lovely. Certainly not a beauty queen... not in the usual sort of way, but as she slept, peacefully unaware of his brooding presence, there was something beautiful about her...

He slammed the drapes shut in disgust.

It was time to leave.

But somehow he found that he simply could not go just yet. It was that awful magnetic pull as usual, but usually his sheer will won over that! Evan Rosier did _not_ consider himself the weak sort who fell prey to mere bodily machinations. Despite the quarrel going on inside his mind however, he found himself reaching out for that curtain once again, and he tore it aside with as much angry force as he'd used to slam the damn thing shut a second earlier. _She_ was still there. _She_ was still asleep.

He raged inwardly as he considered his options. A lesser man than he might have seized the chance to commit an unpardonable crime... certainly, he knew his brothers often engaged in such illicit activities. But Evan could not - _would _not do such a thing. It was... distasteful. He rather enjoyed responsive partners in bed, thank you. And he certainly could not not engage in such activities with _Her_ - _to _Her!

Only... Florence's sleeping face beckoned to him with more appeal than he would have liked to admit, and therein lay the problem. He tried right then and there to leave as usual, squeezing his eyes shut and drawing up an image of his body down in the Slytherin Dungeons as vividly as possible. But Nothing. It was as though he'd hit a wall, and he found himself hurtling through time and space, straight back to Ravenclaw Tower, sprawled out most inelegantly on the floor by Florence Kim's bed. He swore in shock and stood up, horrified. Such a thing had never happened to him before... a failed Projection? Whoever heard of such a thing!

_Fixed!_ he suddenly thought to himself in shock. The word shook him to his core. To be Fixed to a mudblood! It was simply unthinkable, but here he was yet again with no means of leaving... at least, no means that he could deem acceptable under any set of circumstances! To sleep with _Her_! He glared viciously down at her sleeping face and was tempted to strangle her to put himself out of his misery. Better that than the alternative!

He stepped away from the bed to gather his bearings. What did he know about being Fixed? Not much, he thought bitterly. It was not something that happened often. His brothers had mentioned the phenomenon only in passing... it was an unfortunate combination of hormones and magic that resulted in a temporary linkage of souls, an event that occasionally occurred when an incubus was still in a pubescent state with limited Projection control... it was in essence a horrific chemical reaction that would not allow him to control his Projections at all now, and instead chained him to the beastly Florence Kim with her unkempt eyebrows and dull, limp hair until he broke the awful bond by doing the Deed - with Her!

Of course, he could always wait it out for the night until his proper body woke up and pulled him back together again. But that meant hanging around in this godforsaken dormitory in his birthday suit, fighting off the temptation to actually do the unthinkable for the next six hours. And who knew how long he was going to be Fixed to her for? It could be a couple of days, a week, or even until he finally hit maturity! He nearly died at the thought of having to endure this torture and humiliation for another two years. It simply would not do! But how was he to stop it besides doing _That_? There was no way, he thought dismally. It was a question of outgrowing each other. Unless one of them suddenly underwent a hormonal shift overnight, he would be stuck to her.

And the solution to his problem was literally staring at him right in the face. There on the bedside table belonging to one of Florence's dorm-mates was a prescription bottle of _Belsen-21_, its contents shimmering in the clear glass under the moonlight.

Birth-control.

All he had to do was get Her to take it, and voila! Instant hormonal change.

Well. That was easy enough. If Florence Kim responded to anything, it was to the sound of clinking galleons falling into her greedy little hands.

Evan breathed a sigh of relief.

Now. If only he could get through the next six hours without mauling the girl in her sleep...

* * *

><p>The next evening he waited for her outside the Greenhouses as the curfew bells pealed, hidden in the shadows so as not to be seen by any of the Prefects rounding up stragglers to get all students into their common rooms as soon as possible. He knew she had a key to Greenhouse 3 like all the other OWL Herbology students, and he'd seen that she'd booked out the Wednesday evening time slot straight through until Exams. He couldn't think of a better moment to accost her in private without the risk of being seen by the ever-seeking eyes and ears of Hogwarts' gossip-mill.<p>

When he heard the door slide open, he slunk his way out of the shadows and called her name out sharply before she could hurry back to the castle. She turned around in surprise.

"Evan!" she exclaimed, before clapping her hand over her mouth in horror at the faux-pas. He could hardly speak, he was so outraged by the trespass.

"What the fuck did you just call me?" he snarled, shoving her by the shoulders into the Greenhouse despite his earlier (somewhat superstitious) promise to himself not to touch her lest he somehow solidify the Fixation.

She winced at the sudden contact with the Greenhouse walls to her back.

"I - you surprised me is all," she answered angrily, shoving him back with surprising force.

He glared at her. What right did _she_ have to be upset! _He_ was the one who was upset! _She_'d spent all of last night sleeping away in the land of dreams, blissfully unaware of his irate presence at the foot of her bed. And here she was now, calling him aloud by his first name as though they were _acquainted_, where anyone might hear!

"It's not like there's anybody around," she said as though reading his mind, though he saw her glance shiftily about just in case.

"I don't think I ever granted you permission to use my name, mudblood," he seethed. "Now did I?"

She didn't answer him and so he grabbed her by the chin, forcing her head up to look at him.

She'd forgotten he didn't like to repeat himself. It'd been awhile since they'd been alone like this. She shivered unconsciously, then caught herself at it and was appalled to feel a slow burn make its way up her face. She swallowed nervously.

"No," she said slowly, not trusting her words to come out properly. Her face flamed again at the breathy quality of her voice. Hadn't she kicked this infatuation by now? It was February for circe's sake! Well... obviously she had not. And the way he was looking at her... her toes curled inside her boots, literally curled, and she felt a shiver of shame crawl down her spine. She pressed herself back into the Greenhouse, wanting to get away from him, but he bore down on her like an angry bear, though his lips were twisted in a mocking sneer and his eyes glinted with vicious amusement.

"Well, well," he drawled in disbelief, his inner-incubus immediately catching the sudden tension in Kim's body. He'd developed an increasingly sensitive sixth sense to lust as his brothers had informed him he would, and the back of his neck suddenly ran cold with it... _not_ that he needed to be an incubus to see what ought to have been plain to any sixteen-year-old male. Her high cheekbones were tinged red, and he knew it wasn't from the cold, and she stared up at him through her lashes with a strange expression of anger and strangled desire on her face, her lips parting just slightly to take in a sharp breath. He blinked once and stepped back from her, overwhelmed by the sudden development of this strained atmosphere between them.

So. The little mudblood had a thing for him, did she? That much was obvious. How had he not caught onto it before? It must be a new development, he mused. He'd not got this reaction from her the last time they'd met up, back in October. Or was it November? Not that it mattered. But what had changed since then? They'd hardly crossed paths since...

Of course, that would explain why he was suddenly Fixed to her... if she'd developed a _thing_ for him, she was probably exuding bloody hormones like a bitch in heat and he just _happened_ to have the rotten luck of possessing some sort of chemical combination that just _happened_ to click with this new little development of hers.

Fucking Florence Kim of all people, he thought violently. Why? Why couldn't it have been Lucille Devalle? Who had he wronged to be punished so by the gods?

Well. Not that it mattered anymore. He'd already blackmailed one of the seventh years volunteering with Madame Pomfrey into sneaking him a new bottle of _Blesen-21_. All he had to do now was convince the girl to take it.

He pulled the bottle out of his book bag and thrust it roughly into her hands.

"What's this?" she said, recovering immediately from the shock of Evan's surprise visit. A potion? Did this mean he wanted to work with her again? She glanced up at him suspiciously, and as though he'd read her mind, he pulled out a little velvet satchel which he jingled in front of her face with a sneer. She swallowed a sigh of relief and pursed her lips, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her look so weak. Instead, she haughtily glanced back down at the potion and scanned the label. "_Belsen-21_," she read. She frowned. "What - this is a birth control potion... why are you giving me this?" she said, her face flaming in embarrassment once again. She forced herself to look up at him despite wanting to melt into the ground and he gave her a withering glare, though two spots of pink materialized high on his cheeks. She stared at him, astonished. Was that anger or embarrassment on his face?

He shoved her back into the Greenhouse, hissing, "What did I tell you about asking me stupid questions?" and she promptly decided it must have been anger. He certainly _looked_ angry. She pushed him off of her with a grim look of satisfaction.

"It isn't a stupid question. What the hell do you want me to take - to take _that_ for? BCP's have been proven ninety-nine percent accurate since at least the fifties -

"Shut up, Kim. I'm not paying you to recite statistics at me."

"Then what _are_ you paying me for?" she countered sarcastically. "Wait. Don't tell me - you've gone and replaced it with something else, hoping it'll render me sterile, have you? Can't have mudbloods reproducing now, can we?"

He gritted his teeth in disbelief at her sass. She'd apparently grown a pair since the last time they'd met. He pushed her into the greenhouse again and smirked when she grimaced. For extra effectiveness, he grabbed her by the chin again, which he knew she loathed, and tilted her head up so that she couldn't look away from him.

"Do you want to know what I've been doing all these months, Kim?" he said softly, his voice cold and toneless. She swallowed nervously.

"No, not really. And to be honest, I'm not sure if I want your nasty hands all over my face, knowing where they've probably been."

Much to her surprise, his grip loosened - but only momentarily. Suddenly he ran his thumb roughly against her lips and her eyes grew wide with astonishment... and then agony.

"Shhh," he said quietly, enjoying himself as she squirmed against him, yelping in pain. "Burns, doesn't it?"

He let go of her and watched as she ran her tongue over her lips, tears springing to her eyes at the sting.

"What did you do?" she said in a low voice, though she knew perfectly well what he had done. He'd always been good at wandless magic... but never _this_ good. He'd been practicing. Her eyes grew wide with fear. What if he'd found somebody else? Another... assistant? That would just about signal the end of her future, she thought with dismay. But then what did he want with her for?

The truth was Evan _hadn't_ found another assistant, not that she knew anything of the sort. And as for practicing his wandless magic, it was true that he'd always been good and ever since he'd started Projecting, it came to him with that much more ease... but the little burning trick was all that he'd had the time to master thus far, and to be honest, the only reason he'd perfected it was because he was forever losing his matches and lighters. Now, lighting a cigarette was a pinch. Literally.

But he didn't tell her any of this. Instead, he gave her a cold smile.

"Now then," he said. "If you're done wasting me time with stupid comments, let's get down to business, shall we?"

"I won't!" she exclaimed with sudden insistence.

He raised an eyebrow at her.

"Need I remind you that you are paid to do as I say?" He jingled the coin purse at her again and she gritted her teeth.

"Not without proof that it isn't - isn't fixed."

He scowled at the word, not that they were thinking of the same thing.

"It isn't. You're stupid for a Ravenclaw, aren't you? No wonder your housemates hate you. Look at it - it's sealed."

"I don't care," she retorted, ignoring his jab. "Why do you want me to take it so badly if it's the real thing? If it is, then we already know it's accurate -

"You'll take it because I said you will otherwise you won't be seeing a knut from me ever again," he said coolly.

"How can you prove to me that it hasn't been tampered with? Even your money isn't worth - worth going sterile for."

"Why would I want to make you sterile?"

"I dunno, Rosier," she snapped sarcastically. "Why do you hate mudbloods? Why do you like to study dark magic? Why do I feel like you actually enjoy inflicting pain on other people?"

He said nothing and she nodded triumphantly.

"I'm not taking it. Not without a good reason why. We don't see each other for what, three months? And just like that you decide you're going to pay me to take a garden-variety potion that's _legal_ and already proven accurate? I might be a stupid Ravenclaw, but I'm not that stupid."

"Alright," he said with a cold smile, lying through his teeth. "I happened to hear a little rumour that Avery and Mulciber were planning on using a little _imperius_ on you for some... Valentine's day play time. Apparently there's been an... _exotic_ feature in this month's _PlayWizard_. I figured I was being a gentleman by possibly preventing you from giving birth to what could undoubtedly be the stupidest little bastard ever born -

Florence stared at him disbelief, hardly daring to believe the filth that came out of his mouth. And yet... and yet it was certainly possible. Everybody had heard about Mary MacDonald, a muggle-born Gryffindor in fourth-year who'd been found by a prefect in a rather compromising position with Avery and Mulciber just before the winter holidays. The boys had insisted that she'd followed them into the empty classroom and no amount of questioning led to MacDonald saying otherwise. Indeed, rumour had it she'd actually supposedly admitted to having "had a crush" on Christian Avery before Dumbledore himself. She'd recounted everything afterwards, but by then it was too late to punish the boys. The Slytherin boys all knew the real truth of course... and what Evan told Florence was not far from the truth. Avery and Mulciber _had_ been planning a somewhat more discreet version of the Mary MacDonald incident for Valentine's Day and there _had_ been an exotic feature in _PlayWizard _that month, though Florence hadn't even figured on their list of possible candidates when they'd last mentioned the idea.

"So. What will it be? I don't have all night, Kim. I've already missed curfew as it is bringing this to you."

She looked at him dubiously.

"No. I don't believe it. Actually, I don't believe _you_. Why would you want to help me? By _paying_ me to take a potion?"

"Think about it, Ravenclaw," Evan sneered, almost enjoying this. Who knew he was such a good actor? It seemed he'd inherited all the artistic flair in the family. "Who would want to pay for _you_ to take a BCP when everybody with a brain cell knows it'd hardly do you any use?"

She flushed in humiliation.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It means, _ma petite vierge Marie_, that a certain Avery and a certain Mulciber are rather invested in you _not_ becoming a single mother at fifteen - I know, it's quite charitable of them - and so they entrusted me with passing this little gift onto you, as they've been aware for some time that you were under my employ," he said smoothly, smiling widely as her face lost what little colour remained.

"Why are you telling me this?" she said after a moment of silence. "And why - how - you _told_ them? About - about us?"

He made a face at the word 'us' and informed her that under no circumstance was she ever to refer to themselves as such again. She ignored him and pressed on with haranguing him.

"What is the matter with you people? You - you'd just sit by and let that happen to me? To anybody? Did you know about Mary MacDonald?"

"It isn't my business what _they_ get up to. And if you're stupid enough to find yourself alone with those two... well, it isn't exactly easy to cast an _imperius _in a room full of people is it?"

"That's it?" Florence exclaimed, her voice rising two octaves, even as Evan shoved her back into the greenhouse with a warning glare. "That's all you have to say? Fuck you and your BCPs! I'm going to Dumbledore -

He held her against the greenhouse by sheer force, and she squirmed angrily in his grasp, threatening to scream unless he let her go.

"Scream," he hissed. "I dare you. And we'll see what happens. You're nobody, Florence Kim. You think anybody will believe you? I'll have you in an _imperius_ before you can blink and trust me, you'll do as I say then. You think Avery and Mulciber are the only ones who know how to play around with unforgiveables? Take the damned potion and keep your mouth shut. Believe me, it's the best you'll be able to do. Because even if Dumbledore believes your mudblood ass, nobody else will. And Avery's father's a trustee, and Mucliber's got a grandfather on the Wizengamot. Your word against theirs Kim, and I am telling you as a - an unconcerned third party that your word is worth _nothing_."

He released her, though he leaned against the greenhouse with one hand pressed against the glass next to her head, and she looked up at him through her lashes with a look of hurt and despair. Then, she blinked furiously, replacing the wounded expression on her face with one of righteous anger.

"I won't," she said quietly but firmly, looking away but holding the potion out for him. "You can take this back and tell them to shove it up their asses. I won't let this happen to me. I won't -

Her voice threatened to become a sob and she cut herself off before she shed a tear. She inhaled deeply to control her breathing, shutting her eyes momentarily as she exhaled. When she opened them, Evan was no longer leaning against the greenhouse but was standing before her once again. She braced herself for his grasp and twisted her head away from him before he could take her by the chin again. He did it anyway and she looked up at him in resignation.

"Take the potion, Kim," he said tonelessly, pressing the bottle into one of her hands and closing her fingers around it so that she wouldn't drop it. She froze at the touch of his hand around hers, her breath hitching as her heart skipped a beat before thumping away at twice the usual speed.

This was the way to do it. He had to coax her. He could see that now. God, he was an idiot sometimes. Kim was a mudblood, but she was of the female species just the same. Wasn't that why he was in this whole bloody mess to begin with? All he had to do was play her like any other girl. And so he did.

Despite everything he'd ever been taught rebelling against him, he kept his hand wrapped around hers, forcing her to keep a hold of the bottle in her soft soil-covered fingers. He looked down at her with his best smouldering gaze, laughing inside even as he cringed, but much to his surprise, she returned the look and he found himself reacting to it. She wasn't so bad looking as that with her hair pulled up for once, he thought grudgingly, thinking back to the previous night when he'd had a clear glimpse of her face for the first time. And if it wasn't for her unfortunate eyebrows, she might really even be considered somewhat pretty, especially when she looked up at him like _that_.

But she interrupted his thoughts (thank merlin!) by shaking her head suddenly and resolutely, pulling out of his grasp.

"No. I won't. I'm not - I'm not some stupid victim who's going to _enable_ this -

God, he was going to lose his patience soon. Didn't the girl learn? Hadn't he already burned her once?

He smiled inwardly and took her by the face again. She looked up at him in alarm when he suddenly brought his thumb up to her lips again.

"No, don't -

He ran his thumb across her lips again and the look of fear was replaced by something else as he stared down into her almond-shaped eyes. He could feel that tension in the air again, thicker than cold butter. For a moment, neither of them said anything, but stood in silence, hearts pounding louder and louder as they stared at each other in disbelief... and that was almost worse than what happened after, because suddenly they were kissing and there was no thinking involved anymore, no time for anger or disgust or self-loathing. It was exhilarating, and with vague sense of astonishment, Evan could feel his soul greedily absorbing every ounce of sexual energy that exuded from Florence Kim's virgin body. It was that same feeling of quenched satisfaction that he only ever felt after finishing up in his incubus form. Addictive could hardly describe it.

She molded herself against him, even as he pushed her up against the greenhouse so he could pull aside her layers of shabby clothes while he continued to kiss her along the jaw and neck. Though her lips still stung from the slight burn he'd given her earlier, she could hardly distinguish between the pain and pleasure now and she tugged him by the hair so that their lips could meet again. She heard herself let out a cry as his hands finally hit home and roughly skimmed her body, bringing a burning warmth that should not have been possible in such a cold.

But suddenly she saw it, a flitting shadow by Greenhouse Two that had paused a split second too long to be an animal. Instinctively, she shoved Evan off of her and sprang forward, faster than she'd ever moved in her life. Her open cloak, robes and shirt flapped around her against the February wind, but she ignored it as she caught sight of the footprints before her and the owner of the incriminating evidence. A round, dumpy looking witch whipped around to see if anybody was following and Florence stared into the shocked, but gleeful little face of Hogwarts' resident gossipmonger, Bertha Jorkins. The seventh-year Hufflepuff turned away and continued to sprint off at a surprising speed for such a small, lumpy creature. Florence watched her run off in dismay, knowing full well she had too poor an aim and would never be able to throw an accurate hex at her from this distance, only to have her prayers answered by a flash of flaming red light that came from somewhere behind her. It hit the unsuspecting witch right in between the shoulder blades and Bertha Jorkins flew three feet into the air from the force of the spell before she came crashing down into the snow, unconscious.

Florence turned around slowly, hardly daring to believe what had just happened, but Evan's pinched, white face and blazing dark eyes told her in one look where words would have failed that she had not been dreaming.

Suddenly, his lips twisted into a dark sneer.

"Do up your cloak," he hissed as he strode past her with long, furious steps. "You look like a common whore."


	2. Chapter 2

**I'm back. A little New Year's gift to anybody still out there who hasn't given up on me. Etoile Black, thanks for checking up on me so regularly. I know this isn't the Interception chapter everybody's been waiting on, but this is what's been kicking around in my head for a year now and I've finally got it out. Not all that happy with it, but oh well. It's something. Hopefully Interception will be next. I have the ideas in my head but I'm having a lot of trouble getting things out. Believe me when I say I've been writing and rewriting this for all this time.**

**Cheers!**

* * *

><p>While it would have been an exaggeration to say that Evan had experienced a good night's sleep, he was sensible enough to be thankful for having had <em>some<em> sleep - and without projecting, at that. Kim had evidently been smart enough not to try and cheat him despite the previous evening's... indiscretions. He still wasn't sure if he ought to feel some measure of offence at her accusations or not. As if he didn't have better things to do with his time than to render her bloody sterile of all things! Though, he mused silently as he slipped on his robes and left the dorm, it wasn't a bad plan in itself. It was certainly a much more clever way of keeping mudbloods and halfbloods out than by trying to exterminate them all at once as certain personas had attempted throughout the course of history. Evan frowned as he thought of the Dark Lord, under whose influence the wizarding world was beginning to tremble. While it would be a gross exaggeration to call his actions openly hostile, Evan had read the writing on the wall. Things were going to heat up very soon. Alex and Roland had become much more secretive as of late, though it wasn't exactly a secret that they were up to sinister things under the Dark Lord's employ. Well. If employ was even the correct word for it. Indeed, most of Slytherin's young male population seemed to be more and more taken by the idea of joining the Dark Lord's forces. Though nobody presently in school could claim to have had the honour of meeting the man, older siblings and most parents certainly had over the past few years. Evan hadn't been allowed to attend those rare meetings that had happened back home in France, where the Dark Lord's influences were much weaker, yet still of interest to the Old Families. Even Felix hadn't been allowed to attend this past summer, though he would be "coming out" in December at the annual Debutante social. Evan sniffed irritably. Alex and Roland were getting quite insufferable, he thought as he made his way towards the Great Hall. They were already irritating prats, but ever since they'd taken up with being Death Eaters, as they were starting to call themselves, they'd become _that_ much more _insupportable_. And Célèste was really no better. She found them romantic. Romantic! It wasn't romantic in the least. If anybody was going to partake in changing wizarding society, or even the world, idiots like Alex and Roland weren't fit for the task. The Dark Lord was said to be a genius. Brute force had its uses, but one could hardly expect thugs like his brothers and their idiot friends to lead the way... It was an intellectual's task.

Not that Evan was up for such a thing just yet. Not now anyway, he thought icily, when he hardly had control over his own body, let alone his mind. As though to prove a point, his thoughts inevitably turned to the previous night's events. He bloody hated being a teenager. Being an incubus - a pubescent one at that - was even worse. It was a nuisance. A dangerous nuisance. As though being an adolescent wasn't stupid and embarrassing enough, he now had the added torment of being utterly unable to control his impulses whatsoever. He had actually touched the mudblood, he thought to himself with clinical coldness. He'd touched her, which was different from prodding her with the tip of his wand or from pushing her up against a wall to put her in her place. The first time he'd seen her bleed, he had been caught by surprise - had actually been startled to see how vibrantly she bled. It wasn't that he'd seriously expected her blood to trickle out like thick, dark mud, but perhaps subconsciously he still held the childish belief that mudbloods were just that - people made of mud. Grimly, he mused that last night had proved to be similarly jolting as far as experiences went. He'd so firmly taken for granted the notion that she wasn't entirely human in the same way that he was... that her mudblood origins meant that she was lacking in something. Of course, he wasn't expecting his hands to pass through her body or anything silly like that. But it hadn't occurred to him that she could actually _feel _like other girls, that she might actually look at him and see him as attractive. Worse, she'd provoked his own desires. Oh, he wasn't going to make the effort to delude himself. What was the point? He'd spent an entire night at the foot of her bloody bed, pretending that he hadn't seen what she normally kept closely guarded under her long dirty locks and overflowing robes. Touching her had made it all too very real.

He sucked in an indignant breath and thought about what he might have to do if she dared say a word to anybody. Merlin, and to think they'd come _that_ bloody close to being caught! By Bertha bloody Jorkins of all people!

The Great Hall was, naturally, abuzz with the news that the fat cow had been found in the bottom of the East Tower stairwell by one of the ghosts sometime in the wee hours of the morning. As Evan strolled calmly towards his usual seat at the Slytherin Table, he could hear snippets of conversation, and naturally Bertha Jorkins' shrill, whiny voice was loudest of them all. She was busy explaining to all who would listen that "that bitch Florence Kim put me in a full-body bind and left me to rot face-down on the floor all night!"

Yes, Evan thought grimly. She had. Though Jorkins had been stunned, Kim had been reluctant to leave her unconscious on the floor in a crumpled heap. For some reason she'd thought it more humane to put the girl in a full-body bind and then to bring her back into consciousness with a quick "ennervate". Evan looked around, feeling safe from persecution for Jorkins had never actually seen or heard him, but when his gaze skimmed past the High Table, he became uncomfortably aware of Dumbledore's steely blue eyes fixed sternly over him for just a moment too long to go by unnoticed. He shivered inwardly. Bloody Dumbledore, the man seemed to know everything. But of course he didn't, Evan thought calmly. He doesn't know anything. _And even if he did, he can't prove it..._

The rumours were... interesting. Though Jorkins couldn't have possibly seen Evan's face, she'd obviously gotten a quick enough glimpse of his back to describe him to her enraptured listeners. It was a good thing that half the school's male population had "shaggy dark hair" and at least a quarter of them were about his height and size. Cloaks, while not particularly flattering, certainly did their job of keeping their owners wrapped away from the cold - and from prying eyes. Anybody could have fit the description Jorkins gave. But by mid-afternoon, the main rumour circulating was that Sirius Black hadn't made it back to Gryffindor Tower until well past curfew, and interestingly enough, he'd obviously just been outside according to eye-witnesses who'd seen him brush snow off his cloak whilst running up into the fifth-year boy's dormitory two steps at a time. Though Evan had done more or less the same thing, his name hadn't once figured amongst those whispered furtively in association with the words _Florence Kim_ - it was simply unthinkable. Or at least, more unthinkable than the words _Sirius Black and Florence Kim _together, anyhow. Certainly, the fact that they'd both been remarkably late to breakfast had added fuel to the fire. Nobody pointed out that Black was late for everything anyway, and that there was nothing particularly special about his late appearance that morning. Kim, on the other hand...

God, Evan thought angrily, she wasn't even attractive. Bitterly, he pondered over this as she tried to make her way into the Great Hall with her head bowed as usual. Dark, limp, greasy hair was all most people ever saw of her. Nothing about her appearance had changed. She was diminutive in every way, small and insignificant beneath her large robes, forever tucked away between her two Hufflepuff friends - Sinclair and Kennedy, who were both tall and overshadowing. Sinclair was built like a hyppogriff, sheer mass and height. Kennedy was lanky and lithe, but even he looked beastly compared to Kim. It was nearly impossible to pick her out of a crowed. How very different she was in private... But merlin, had she been picked at today. Even Sinclair and Kennedy hadn't been able to shield her from the verbal blows directed at her person. Sheer disbelief and disgust. Hell, even Black had suffered by association. Had he really been seen with this girl? Black, who was notorious for evading the clutching grasps of Hogwarts' female population, had actually snogged/shagged (depending on which version of the rumours you listened to) this creature in the Greenhouses?

But Evan knew better. Sick to his stomach, it occurred to him that he knew better than most. Probably even Sinclair and Kennedy didn't know what was hidden underneath that filthy hair and those overly-large robes. He caught his gaze wandering towards her for the sixth time during Charms class later that day as she tried to shrink into the shadows while Flitwick lectured on. Much to his horror, he felt a rush of heat as he tried in vain _not_ to think about last night. But in all honesty, he'd been on edge since they'd parted ways. Fixed or not, he was still in a stupid pubescent incubus mode and he was still an overly hormonal teenager and the need to... adjust himself in public hadn't exactly been rare since he'd started projecting a few months back. He could only silently thank Circe that none of his brothers were here with him - they'd take one look at him and expose him for a fool. It was horrifying how heightened his senses were to those around him, and his brothers were no different. Hell, even now, Evan could practically feel Lorenna Davies quivering with excitement in the row below him as her boyfriend Neil Goffman ran a quill almost imperceptibly up and down her arm. Evan swallowed hard and looked away, anger simmering in his veins. He fucking hated being sixteen. He absolutely hated it.

And of course, Kim was tucked away in her little corner, trying her best to blend in with the walls despite the fact that all eyes had been flickering towards her throughout the day since her late, and short-lived Great Hall appearance that morning. Evan glanced around and quickly stuffed his hand down his trouser pocket, pretending to look for something as he adjusted himself... what with the kind of day he was having, it wouldn't have surprised him in the least if Flitwick were to address a question to him, forcing him to stand up and effectively exposing himself to everybody in the class. It had happened once to Roland, who'd relayed the story without an ounce of shame and great laughter, but Evan would not have taken the situation so lightly. He shivered at the thought of it. And _she_ would know. He just knew it. She would look up at him - ever so quickly, but just long enough to catch his eye before looking down again, but it wouldn't matter. She would know. In fact, she was looking at him now - he could feel it. Heat tried crawling its way up the back of his neck, but Evan stifled its progress by looking up at Flitwick's grotesque face.

Suddenly, somebody rapped sharply at the door, and two dozen heads turned with great interest and dread to see who had come. Lately, mid-class interruptions tended to signal bad news... the last time class had been interrupted, by dinner time everybody knew that Harrison Bones' grandparents had been found murdered in their home, all the portraits slashed and house-elves beheaded. Evan was acutely aware that the Ravenclaws were shifting uncomfortably in their seats, glancing at the Slytherins as Joel McDowell, who was the head boy, walked briskly towards the front of the class to exchange a few quiet words with Professor Flitwick. The room was deathly still. Then, Professor Flitwick called out "Florence Kim". Necks cracked as heads turned whip-fast to stare as Kim shakily stood onto her feet. Was she being called out for what had happened to Bertha Jorkins? Or something worse? Everybody knew she was a mudblood...

* * *

><p>Florence wanted to die as she quickly made her way towards the front of the class, shrinking deeper into the recesses of her robes as she felt the stares burning into her from all sides, Rosier's eyes glowering darker and more spitefully than the rest. She didn't dare look up at the McDowell, who shut the door behind her after motioning for her to step through. Her heart thumped painfully in her chest as she wondered if this was it.<p>

Stupidly, she blurted out, "Am I being expelled?"

"Sorry?" McDowell repeated.

A flush of embarrassment washed over Florence's face as the head boy glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.

"N-nothing," she stammered, hating herself, hating the way her voice shook and how small and stupid she felt. Inwardly, she clenched her fists, clenched her jaw, and imagined that she was somebody else. She loathed it, the way her mouth shut down on her whenever she was in public. Either she spoke too much, too quickly, or she was unable to speak at all, her words choking her even though she screamed from the inside.

McDowell let out an awkward cough but she ignored it, and continued to walk silently behind him as he led her down the corridors.

"So," he drawled at last, "I have to ask..." He stopped and looked down at her with a serious expression on his face. "Did you really dump Bertha Jorkins at the bottom of the East Tower last night?"

She gaped at him, unable to speak. He stared back at her, his expression still, until his nose twitched a fraction and he smirked at her.

"You should take a look at your face right now," he chuckled suddenly. "I'm only asking because, well..." He lowered his voice. "Between you and me, she's had it coming for awhile."

She blushed and looked away, but was no longer quite so intimated by his presence. At least, not in the same way. She'd half expected him to lash out her. But still... he was the head boy, a seventh year, and a good-looking one at that. He'd slowed down his steps to walk next to her now, and she examined him discreetly from under the perpetual protection of her low-hanging fringe.

Florence didn't spend much time looking at boys. They'd never been interested in her, and she'd been quite content leading a celibate life until very recently. And then Rosier had interfered with all of that, even though he hadn't known it at the time. She'd been ok - well, she'd _accepted_ the fact that she'd found him attractive, and would have certainly gone on leading her life without doing anything about it, and then yesterday had happened out of the blue, reminding her quite suddenly that she was in fact a human being.

An animal.

With needs.

And now she was walking next to Joel McDowell, who seemed somewhat interested by her presence, if only because he was curious as to whether or not the rumours held some truth. She ignored the fact that she was being escorted to the headmaster's office and that he hadn't known of her until probably this very morning, despite the fact that they were in the same house. She avoided spending time in Ravenclaw Tower as much as possible, and McDowell had rarely been present even when she was about, for he was forever running back and forth between Head Boy duties and Quidditch, and Prefect Duties before that. Not to mention, he was older than her by two years. Seventh years rarely condescended to speak to fifth years unless they were in a team or club together. Occasionally the better-looking girls might hook up with an older boy.

Occasionally.

That was high school for you.

She wondered why he was being nice to her just then. They walked, and he filled the awkward silence with amiable chatter about Quidditch and the stress from NEWTs, not at all afraid to call her out on her mousiness with little friendly jabs whenever she refused to answer his queries. He reminded her of Will and Val in a way, though her two friends could never illicit so much heart-pounding from her. God, she bemoaned privately, why had she ever hooked up with Rosier? Two days ago, if Joel McDowell had come to escort her to Dumbledore's office, she wouldn't have looked twice at him. Now... she was painfully aware of the fact that he was exceedingly handsome, and she... well, was exceedingly plain.

He brought attention to this when suddenly, he asked her jokingly, "So who _were_ you getting all hot and heavy with out there, then?", causing her heart to stop momentarily.

Involuntarily, irritation flickered briefly across her face but he held up his hands in a sign of mock deference before she could rearrange her features into a stony mask, the kind that Rosier wore so well.

"Alright, alright, I get the picture," McDowell said with a quick shrug. He shot her a dimpled smirk. "Just curious."

"Yeah, you and the rest of the planet," she mumbled under her breath.

"Well you have to admit," said McDowell delicately, voice trailing off slightly as he pursed his lips in embarrassment at his faux-pas. She turned away from him.

She wanted to yell at him, get him to complete his sentence, but shrank back instead. After all, he was more or less insinuating at what everybody else was openly saying. He was simply slightly more... polite about it. But he'd nearly slipped up just then. Even _she_ was perfectly aware of how absurd the rumours must sound. _Well you have to admit... _

And it _was_ ludicrous. It really was. As if Sirius Black would ever be caught dead with his hand up her shirt!

_Yeah, but Rosier's nearly as good._

She flushed at the thought.

They walked in silence, Florence having retreated as far into herself as possible. McDowell, who'd obviously caught on to the fact that she was upset, refrained from saying anything more. When they reached at last the Headmaster's office after what felt like an impossibly long walk, he muttered a quick, embarrassed "good luck" before knocking sharply on Dumbledore's office door.

"Ah. Thank you, Mr. McDowell. Very timely of you, as always," said Dumbledore as the door creaked open. "You can escort Mr. Black back to class now, and that will be all."

"Like a child," Black grumbled to himself as he sauntered out of Dumbledore's office, though his tone was humorous, if in a slightly mocking way. He nodded loftily at McDowell and passed a brief but scrutinizing gaze over Florence. Her face flamed as he examined her with his haughty grey eyes, and quite obviously found her wanting.

McDowell shut the door behind Black with a resounding _thud_, leaving Florence alone with the old headmaster.

Dumbledore gave her a wizened stare, but Florence swore to herself the old man was smirking.

"So, Miss Kim. I don't believe I've had the pleasure of speaking to you in person since your first year..."

Florence gulped, and braced herself for what was sure to be the biggest turning point in her life.

"Please sir," she said in her meekest voice, doing her best to channel a particularly pathetic Oliver Twist."Please don't expel me!"

"Miss Kim," said Dumbledore sternly, but now she _knew _he was smirking, "I am hardly a tyrant! If I were to expel every student caught, ahem, expressing their amorous sentiments after curfew, the school's population would be sparse indeed!"

Florence wanted to die of mortification. The old man was clearly having fun at her expense. But he looked at her suddenly with a very blue, very piercing stare, and it was as though he was trying to memorize her very soul.

"But stunning a fellow student is a serious offence indeed," he finished softly, and so seriously that for a second Florence wondered if he knew just who she'd been with the previous night.

"I - we," she stammered nervously, "That is - it was an accident, sir. He - I just panicked!"

Dumbledore didn't bat an eye.

"I see. And by _he, _I daresay you are not referring to Mr. Black?"

"No sir," she murmured self-consciously with a hot angry blush, suddenly recalling Black's haughty stare. Not that she could blame him, she thought bitterly. He'd suffered all day from having students snickering behind his back wherever he went. It'd probably been more unnerving for him - he'd never been the object of such treatment throughout his years at Hogwarts. He was everybody's stupid Golden Gryffindor Bad Boy.

She sucked in an icy breath and looked up. Had Dumbledore been saying something? He seemed to be looking at her expectantly, as though waiting for her to say something. She coughed.

"Sorry sir, could you repeat that?"

Dumbledore's eyes twinkled once more.

"Ah, young love," he said wistfully, with only a hint of melancholy, causing Florence to blush furiously once more.

"I'm hardly in love, sir," she protested vehemently, thanking the gods for holding her stammer at bay.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks," the headmaster replied. Florence stared blankly at him. "What's this?" he said incredulously. "Does the lady not recognize the Bard?"

Of course she bloody knew Shakespeare, she thought icily. Or knew _of_ him, she admitted silently to herself. But she'd never read any of his plays. When she'd first moved to England, it had been a struggle enough trying to wrap her head around all the different accents and words. Reading Shakespeare had been the last thing on her mind at the age of eight. Though she'd picked up on English quickly enough, by the time she'd been comfortable enough to speak a string of words in public without the fear of being mocked for her "talking gooky", she'd been informed of her magical status and sent off to Hogwarts, where she'd been forced to take elocution as part of Theory of Magic in first year along with everybody else. Here, it was not her "gooky accent" that was on display. Professor Bradbury, who taught the course, had made her (and Will) both painfully aware that he found their "lazy London" accents an "abomination, an absolute destruction of the English language". He'd forced them to repeat tongue-twisters with the letter "t" in them before the class over and over again as a particularly nasty form of punishment. And naturally, they'd all been regaled several times over with the story of the mythical unfortunate third-year who'd once attempted a door-locking charm, and had "utterly butchered the pronunciation of _colloportus _by omitting the t" (cue nasty glare at Florence and WIll). The poor boy had supposedly ended up nearly suffocating himself on the spot, for he'd literally jammed his mouth and nose shut. Florence cringed just thinking about Bradbury and that wretched class.

Oh lord. Was Dumbledore talking to her again?

She stared up at him in embarrassment and he gave her a small sigh.

"I take it, Miss Kim, that you aren't going to offer up the name of your partner in crime?"

Florence shook her head vehemently, trying to picture how Dumbledore would react even if she _did_ tell him the truth. His eerily blue eyes would probably pop out of his withered old face, she thought quite frankly.

"Th-there's nothing to tell," she squeaked in embarrassment. "It-it was a one off. And please, professor, it was m-me who hexed Bertha Jorkins."

"I see," he said sternly, and she looked away, refusing to wait and see if he too would judge her as her peers had. They all seemed to believer her to be either a noxious slut or even more repulsive a creature than ever. Suddenly, he gave her a true sigh, and for a split second a strange, harrowed expressing flickered across his otherwise still gaze. A shiver crawled up her spine and she wondered what he was thinking about.

"Sir?"

He gave her another stern look.

"You are aware, Miss Kim, that somebody must be punished for the unfortunate incident concerning Miss Jorkins. I cannot let duelling go unpunished, you see, otherwise it might set a bad example to other students. That said, I cannot with good conscience punish the person who has not committed the crime."

"But it _was_ me, sir!"

Dumbledore blinked slowly and Florence looked away, for he seemed to read her expressions as easily as a book.

"Ah," he sighed again. "What it is to be young and in love," he repeated morosely. "And so you shall take the blame for the crimes of your nameless, faceless partner?"

She didn't bother protesting again and Dumbledore shook his head.

"I really ought to insist," he said, as though to himself. "But you won't tell, will you? I am left with no choice but to wage a battle against my conscience. I will, of course, have to take points away from Ravenclaw, as I have with both Gryffindor and Hufflepuff... it seems there was a number of you running about last night past curfew."

"Gryffindor, sir?"

"Mr. Black has confessed to being out last night, though he denies having seen you or Miss Jorkins."

Florence coloured, picturing Black's lofty expression upon running into her just now.

"So. I suppose I shall have to double the points from Ravenclaw, as you were... ahem, involved in a duel of sorts with Miss Jorkins, though I've been told she was not duelling, but rather running back to her common room upon realizing that it was past curfew." There was a sarcastic little twinkle in Dumbledore's expression that made Florence snort inwardly. Even a first-year wouldn't believe such a stupid excuse, though it was true that they hadn't exactly been duelling.

"Er, yes sir," Florence confirmed uncomfortably. "That is, we weren't exactly duelling..."

"I see. And yet I am still equally convinced that it was not you who stunned Miss Jorkins. And so, points off of Ravenclaw for participating in a crime you did not commit. I am inclined to tack on a detention somewhere, but I believe you've suffered enough punishment at the hands of your peers?"

Florence pursed her lips and sank into her robes. Of course Dumbledore would know about that. How could the staff _not_ be aware of how cruel gossip could be?

Dumbledore sighed and shook his head for the umpteenth time, but he gave her a kind, if slightly stern smile.

"You're free to go, Miss Kim."

She let out a breath of air that she had not been aware of having held in. She sat up on wobbly legs and thanked the old professor.

"No, no," he said, "Do not thank me. It is a wretched character in a headmaster, this thing we call a conscience," he said dryly. "All headmasters ought to be able to hand out punishments to one's students without batting an eye."

"Hear hear," one of the portraits on the wall chimed, and Florence jumped, startled by its suddenness.

Dumbledore gave her a small, weary smile.

"And Miss Kim?" he said suddenly, as she made to shut the door behind her.

"Er, yes sir?"

"You know that I am here to listen, if ever you have anything to say. While I am sadly powerless to act upon your behalf outside of these school grounds or when term is out, please do not hesitate to see me - or any of your professors - should the need ever arise."

Florence gave him a curt nod, unable to meet his eyes. She gave him another shaky thanks and shut the door firmly behind her.

He knew.

But of course he knew.

How could he not know? He was bloody Dumbledore. The man had an all-seeing eye.

She swallowed the lump in her throat and lobbed her head up a couple of inches.

The world could go fuck itself.

* * *

><p>Naturally, the rumours regarding the Jorkins-Kim-Black triangle became even more wild when after dinner, Sirius Black hexed Bertha Jorkins to next Tuesday and back in the middle of the corridor outside of the Great Hall. He had to be restrained from literally spitting in her eye, for he was so enraged at having endured an entire day's worth of teasing from his fellow students. Jorkins had been prodding at him all day, so satisfied was she at having reeled in such a target for her irritating, malicious gossip. Black had <em>never<em> been caught with a girl before, though certainly many had tried. That he should be seen with Florence Kim of all people had been too much for anybody to pass up on despite all of his protests. Jorkins' last comment had been the straw that broke the camel's back. No less than twenty people claimed to have witnessed Jorkins' nose suddenly transformed into a large dead tree branch that grew so heavy in so little time that she'd actually pitched over and had to have her body supported by her friends lest she snap her neck from the weight of her plump body hanging off her nose. By the time Professor McGonagall had waded her way past the crowd of students bottlenecked at the Great Hall's entrance, Black was spewing a litany of foul language at Jorkins while his friends egged him on (though it did not fail to escape Evan's notice that Potter had seized Black's wand, certainly out of fear that he might do something even more reckless like actually attempt to kill the girl). The crowd dispersed when it became clear that there was nothing more to see, and that McGonagall would be handing out detentions to anybody seen "dawdling" in the corridor in the next five minutes. Satisfied that further justice had been done unto Bertha bloody Jorkins, Evan made his way towards the dungeons with a little smirk.

Florence had not bothered to show up for dinner. Too depressed to even think about food, she'd slunk off towards an empty classroom where she, Val and Will sometimes hung out, knowing full well that she would be neither welcome in her own common room, nor the Hufflepuffs' cozy den where she usually spent her remaining free time with the boys. Her presence there had become so usual that students rarely even noticed her at all. She would be noticed today. In fact, Florence thought with mounting despair, she would certainly be noticed for the rest of her Hogwarts days henceforth, especially because Jorkins was a Hufflepuff.

After she parted ways with her friends, she became more melancholic with each step as she mulled over the past two days' events. How could things have gone so bloody wrong? And then there was Dumbledore, who seemed to know everything about everyone. She could have died of humiliation. But of course he knew. He knew everything.

She could barely tolerate the thought that somebody, even Dumbledore, might no her more private secrets. Hogwarts had been like a dream when she'd first seen it, and it continued to be a dream every September when she laid eyes upon it anew after two months of hell in the city. Oh, London itself was fine. It was her family that was unbearable. The thought of having to spend the rest of her days helping to run her parents' little shop made her want to end her life then and there... and if she were to have been expelled from Hogwarts, it was all she would have been good for. What other prospects did she have? Her muggle education had ended at the age of eleven. She could hardly go back to school in the muggle world now. And she hardly had enough money to support herself despite Rosier's shockingly generous pay.

She both scowled and blushed at the thought of Evan Rosier. It was infuriating that he had reduced her to a quivering mass of uselessness by simply touching her. As she stormed into the Room, she was sorely tempted to kick over his perpetually present easel, which, he warned her on no less than three hundred occasions, was protected by multiple curses lest she attempt to peek under the drapes.

Fury grew as she paced the room and in a sudden fit of rage, she kicked over a chair. She was furious and bitter. What had she done to offend the gods? Why did Murphy's Law have to come down upon her in full force? She'd endured a lifetime of teasing and taunting, and no matter how angry she got inside, as soon as she opened her mouth to speak the words simply died on her lips. She was a coward. She was useless. What good was being angry if she couldn't even express it properly to the right people?

God, and here she was now, crying like a stupid child. She wiped angrily at her eyes and stopped in front of a wardrobe missing a door. The remaining door had a cracked mirror on the front that had long ago ceased to speak. She was a mess. A disgusting, wet mess.

What had Rosier even seen in her anyway?

Nothing, she laughed coldly to herself. There was nothing. He'd seduced her - literally seduced her to get what he wanted from her. It was pathetic. Who fell for seduction in this modern day an age? He'd read her well, apparently. Of course he did. He always did. Jingle a coin purse and she'd come running. When she'd hesitated, he'd played to her basest instincts and kissed her. She laughed acerbically. Was she that transparent that he'd been able to pick up on her attraction towards him? She hated him.

And yet ironically, he was the only person with whom she could be herself. At least, the version of herself she liked best. She didn't give a fuck around him. He was a Slytherin. He despised her and so she never felt the need to try and get him to like her because he never would. She didn't mind his hatred. In a way she _liked_ antagonizing him because it meant for once she could fight back. Her mouth rarely failed around him. Oh, she didn't get too snippy with him, mind you - she was still his employee, and alienating him meant risking her future... Which, she thought bitterly, she'd already done. Yesterday _had_ been the first time they'd properly seen each other in several months after all...

She flushed again, recalling how his hands had burned against her skin. Literally burned, in the case of her lips. Neat little trick, she thought woefully. Yes... he'd always been terrifyingly adept at magic.

But he needed her to practice. She knew he did. She just had to make him see... She would not go back to living with her parents. She couldn't. Maybe if she let him practice the unforgiveables on her...

She stared at her reflection and shook her head. She was insane, of course. The unforgiveables were unforgiveable for a reason. While they'd experimented with all sorts of spells and potions, they'd never gone so far as to trying anything quite so damaging. An ill-placed cruciatus could render somebody mad. And yet, they _had_ played with mind spells in the past... But it was more terrifying to picture herself a human vegetable than to think of the pain generally associated with the cruciatus. Pain might be short-lived. Madness was not. And as for the imperius... he could cast an imperius on her and never remove it, and nobody would ever be the wiser. She shuddered at the thought.

Florence glared at her reflection and ran a hand through her long, dirty locks, cringing at the how thick and greasy they felt. It was an improvement on what they'd been this time last year, but she silently cursed her dormmates anyway, who she long ago had decided were some of the worst people in the world. But at least she could sort of put her hair up now, she thought with some minimal relief. Her anger returned as she thought about her dormmates. Everybody always assumed Ravenclaws were such saintly creatures. She couldn't think of anything that was further from the truth.

For a long time, her only friend in Ravenclaw had been Pandora Pierce, an extraordinary witch who'd graduated the previous year. Pandora had not only been magically gifted, but the older girl was also impossibly kind and beautiful, both inside and out. Sadly, she too had been picked on by her peers, jealous of her attributes. It only egged them on that she never seemed to respond, too engaged in her own little world to bother lashing out at her tormentors. Florence had been devastated when Pandora graduated, for her only house ally was no more. While they did not keep in touch - Pandora was not the sort of girl to write letters - she knew that if they ever ran into each other again, they would pick up on conversation as easily as they ever had. For now, however, she was alone in a house full of harpies. Her hair was a lasting testament to the fact.

She turned away from the mirror, angry once again.

The Hair incident - or this one in particular to be more precise, for there had been several 'hair' incidents - had occurred right after the holidays last year. Her dormmates had come back from vacation with their usual gaggle of gifts and gossip, and one of them had stolen a little bit of hair elixir from her mother's office. Kathleen Clayton's mother worked in potions, and had recently brewed a large batch of special elixir used on Pogrebins, a hairy Russian beast whose long shaggy hair was an important sought-after ingredient for use in several potions and occasionally as a wand core. The elixir was used on Pogrebins when they were on the verge of death, which was when their hairs were said to be most potent. The elixir caused the Pogrebin's hairs to fall out. It also apparently led to total baldness in humans; Kathleen Clayton had thought of the brilliant idea of using the elixir on herself so that she would "never have to shave again", but hadn't dared experiment on herself for fear of something going terribly wrong. One of the other girls had suggested testing it on Florence.

Naturally, Florence learned of all this only a few days later when her hair started coming out in clumps. Will and Val had convinced her she was dying of cancer and had dragged her to the Hospital Wing, having witnessed part of her eyebrow falling off her face before their very eyes. Madame Pomfrey, after conducting a few tests, had eventually discovered the cause. Though Kathleen had been given detention for a week, Florence had suffered for over a year.

In order to reverse the elixir's effects, she had to first wait for all of her hair to fall out, which took three humiliating days during which she was not exempt from attending classes, and then she was prescribed a disgusting antidote which looked and smelled like rancid body fat. The antidote was to be applied to her scalp once a week like clockwork for a year or so, with one water rinse permitted between applications. Her hair would continue to fall out throughout that time and she would have to regularly make use of a regrowth charm until it could grow out on its own, but eventually the antidote would begin to properly take effect. She was ashamed to admit it, but she'd cried upon hearing the news. Her hair had been her only pride and joy as far as her physical appearance went. Even her mother hadn't been able to find fault in it up until Kathleen Clayton and her wretched elixir had ruined it.

That had been a little over a year ago. In fact, she thought suddenly, perhaps she ought to visit Madame Pomfrey soon to check on her scalp. Her eyebrows and eyelashes had been doing fine for months now. Indeed, they'd grown in thicker than ever, but she hadn't dared pluck them. To begin with, she neither had the tools nor the skills to undertake such a task. Second, she wouldn't have dared to do so without Pomfrey's consent, for fear of them never growing back. But they were doing alright. Merlin, at least there was something there now! Applying the antidote to her eyelashes (or lack thereof) had been agonizing because of the initial burn, not to mention the stench. As for the rest of her body... Though she'd been horrified and disgusted at the age of twelve to discover that hair could grow in places other than one's head and legs, Florence had been even more shocked when she'd gone to use the loo, only to find that she'd gone half bald down _there. _Of course, this was the one thing she had not told Madame Pomfrey about (not that the older woman hadn't guessed judging by her brisk, clinical instructions on where to apply the potion), but quite honestly, once she'd gotten used to the idea of being permanently hairless below the neck, she hadn't been all that disturbed. Evidently Kathleen Clayton's harebrained scheme hadn't been totally off the mark... At least Florence had reaped _some_ profit off the disastrous experiment.

In fact, she thought suddenly, why not go see Madame Pomfrey after all? Perhaps the old matron would even let her stay in the Hospital Wing overnight for observation? That would at least solve her sleeping dilemma... occasionally she stayed in the Room overnight, but Rosier had stumbled upon her on a few occasions at odd hours in the night or at the crack of dawn, and to say that they'd come to near-blows was an understatement. Neither of them were morning people it seemed, and not to mention, it was also embarrassing to be caught in one's pyjamas by a teenage boy. It was hard to guess how he might react upon seeing her now. They hadn't crossed paths all day, and Florence could barely believe her unbelievable luck in that regard. The only time they'd even been within sight of each other had been briefly at breakfast and of course, during Charms class, but she'd spent most of the lecture trying to will herself into not existing. Then McDowell had come to fetch her and that had been that. Will and Val had brought her dinner to her refuge in an empty classroom - cold rolls that they'd split open and stuffed with bits of whatever was on the table, but she hadn't been in the mood to eat. She'd sat in numb silence as they'd gone on about the latest rumours, and how Black had attacked Jorkins in the corridor after dinner, fuelling more speculation about what had really gone on the previous night. They'd poked at Florence with their questions, but had eventually given up, fully aware of how stubborn she could be.

The Hospital Wing was blessedly quiet when Florence silently made her way in to Madame Pomfrey's domain, except for Remus Lupin who'd nearly caused her to blow his head off in shock when he let out a hacking cough from somewhere in the shadows. His face was haggard and grey, and he seemed somehow insignificant in his flowing hospital gown compared to his usual self when accompanied by his friends. Florence flushed a hot pink for the umpteenth time that day as it occurred to her just who his friends were.

"Madame Pomfrey had to go see Professor Slughorn," said Lupin, breaking the awkward silence after another hacking cough. He sat up in his bed and ran a hand through his rumpled hair. A nasty scab on his temple, fresh by the looks of it, marred his weary face. She caught herself staring when he looked back at her defiantly, and she immediately dropped her gaze. "I know you weren't with him, you know," he said suddenly, causing her head to shoot up again in alarm. Lupin tilted his head a fraction of an inch. "With Sirius, I mean."

"Thanks for the input," she said sourly, her stammer displaced by her quick anger at having to hear about the situation all over again. She immediately slammed her mouth shut. Why could she never control her voice? Either she said too much or she couldn't say anything at all. She looked away from him, embarrassed by her outburst. Why was her life a series of humiliating, unfortunate events? Why couldn't she just skip the next three years of her life? Anything had to be better than fifteen. Even fourteen had been a better year. And to think! She had to endure two more years of this - this nonsense!

Lupin coughed again, sounding like he was about to expel his lungs from his nostrils, and Florence stared at him in alarm.

"What are you here for anyway?" Lupin gasped at last, clearly bored and trying to make conversation. He stared back at her, his expression still that strange mixture of timidity and defiance, as though he was daring her to express her pity. She chewed on the inside of her cheek, a habit that she hadn't managed to break despite her parents' best attempts. "You don't really talk much, do you?" Lupin sighed.

"Neither do you," Florence countered before she could help herself.

Lupin flashed her a shy smile and she felt a blush creep up her neck again. She looked away from him.

"I'm not a leper you know," said Lupin quietly, and Florence couldn't tell if he was joking or not. She opened her mouth to say something, but suddenly the door burst open and Madame Pomfrey appeared, carrying a box full of potions and other ingredients. Florence shot up onto her feet.

"Miss Kim, yes, I see you - give me a moment," she said dryly, as she set down her box. "I was wondering when you would be stopping by. I see your eyebrows are looking rather...er, healthy. Sit down, sit down a moment. Mr. Lupin, here's your pepperup potion, and do take care of that scab, if you please - I don't want you back here with an infection on top of that nasty cold."

"Yes, Madame Pomfrey," Lupin replied dully, taking the pepperup from the healer with a grim expression on his face. He plugged his nose and dutifully chugged it back as Pomfrey watched with her hawkish eyes until every last drop had disappeared. She gave him a satisfied harrumph and then waved dismissively at him once the telltale smoke started spiralling out of his ears. He gave Florence a curt nod as he left the Hospital Wing.

"So," said Madame Pomfrey briskly, turning to Florence with an appraising glance, tutting in disapproval. "Are you still using growth charms? I imagine not after all this time."

"Erm, no. Just the antidote now," Florence replied.

"Yes, I can see," the healer replied dryly. "Alright, I shall administer a few tests and we'll see how your hair holds up. Judging by the state of your eyebrows, I would be shocked if you haven't nearly reached full recovery."

"Oh, well," Florence began, but then let out a yelp when Pomfrey suddenly pulled at a lock of hair. Pomfrey tutted again.

"Did that hurt?"

_Of course it did you bleeding maniac! _

"Just a bit."

"Hmm. Well it seems healthy enough - I must say it has grown in quite a bit thicker than it used to be, but I imagine that isn't anything to complain about and it was to be expected. Are you still losing much hair?"

"No, it's quite a bit better now. It just hurts to put it up for too long but other than that, I'd say it's nearly back to normal."

"Yes, we'll see," Pomfrey replied. She murmured a spell and Florence felt a cool tingle on her scalp. "Yes, quite good," Pomfrey muttered. "Almost no residue left. I imagine that in less than a month's time it shouldn't even hurt to put your hair up any longer. You can start increasing the number of water washes, but still apply the antidote until you can put your hair up without pain. Come back in a month and hopefully we can wean you back onto shampoo. Need I even ask how the rest of your body fares?"

Florence flushed.

"Er, no," she said weakly.

Pomfrey rolled her eyes.

"No need to be squeamish, Miss Kim. I take it that you have opted to go the hairless route then. Well, don't go telling anybody that or I might find myself with a lineup out the door. The things girls do these days... Alright, you're free to go. Oh, and feel free to do something about your eyebrows - but if you start plucking them and they don't grow back, come back and see me. It should be fine though, I didn't detect any residue."

"Yes Madame Pomfrey. Er, have a good night."

"You as well. Do take care, Miss Kim."

* * *

><p>Florence was overjoyed at the prospect of a shower. To be able to wash her hair again! With shampoo! Granted, it might not be for another couple of months, but to even be able to wash her hair with water every day was an amazing thought. But then she remembered that returning to Ravenclaw Tower for the night was hardly the best idea in the world right now, and so glumly she resigned herself to having to spend the night in the Room without a shower.<p>

Of course, the Room was occupied when Florence skulked her way in, and Rosier did not look the least bit pleased to see her.

"What are you doing here? It's Thursday," she said, after they stared at each other in awkward silence for what felt like an eternity. It was strange, she thought. They'd had plenty of staring matches in the past, but never had anything ever felt awkward between them.

"I know it's Thursday," he said coldly at last, his dark eyes boring into hers, his expression unreadable. Her face flamed as she thought about the way he'd looked at her last night, how he'd scattered bruising kisses along her collarbones and up her jawline. She wondered what he'd been thinking then. It was insanity. It felt like it had happened a lifetime ago.

Evan felt her sudden change of mood, was probably more aware of it than she was if anything. He felt his own pulse speed up in excitement, and he never hated his body more. It was a loathsome, humiliating thing, being a pubescent incubus. He wondered how a body could be so traitorous, so utterly against everything his mind was screaming. And really, to be attracted to Florence Kim of all people! She really was quite the ugly little thing. He wondered how it was possible for somebody to look so different awake and whilst sleeping. But he'd kissed her yesterday, and while he'd done it with the express purpose of seducing her, he hadn't meant it to escalate the way it did. What had started off as a stupid, closed-lip kiss had gotten way out of hand. And the worst part of it was how little control he'd had. Really, none at all, if he was going to start being honest with himself. For god's sake, he'd had his hands up her shirt, and he could still feel the weight of her breasts in his palms, could still hear the little mewling noises she'd been making until Jorkins had appeared.

But that was yesterday. Today was today. She'd taken the potion, and he was obviously and thankfully no longer Fixed to her... but obviously his body could sense her growing lust and was responding to it in the only way it knew how, and it was all utterly maddening. His incubus gene didn't give two damns whether or not Kim was ugly or a mudblood. It sensed lust and was more than happy to do something about it. He wanted to back away from her, but knew if he did it would be like conceding to a weakness. He didn't dare. Instead, he swallowed hard and glared at her as stonily as possible, wishing he could reduce her to ashes with a simple look. What he'd wanted was for her to back away as she usually did. What he hadn't wanted or expected was for her to stare at him as she was now doing like a bloody cow.

Suddenly, she shook her head and backed away as he'd wanted. She turned away from him and began to walk towards the other side of the room, where he'd noticed earlier that she'd left her book bag.

Evan cleared his throat, wanting to speak, but found no words coming out of his mouth.

Her face suddenly came into view again, no longer hidden under her dirty greasy locks, and Evan looked away angrily. Merlin, why did she have to go and do that for? She wasn't half bad like that, when you could see her face and not so much her hair. Circe, how had he kissed her? He could still feel the smoothness of her skin and taste the slight salty tang of her neck...

_You're an embarrassment_, a little voice in the back of his head sneered, and naturally Evan was inclined to agree. Furiously, he lit himself a cigarette as a distraction.

This was going to be one awkward conversation.


	3. Chapter 3

**Hey guys, thanks for the reviews! It's great hearing from you guys again :) I know the chapters are long, but I dunno, when I'm on a streak, I'm on a streak I guess hehe **

**I tried to put a little more Evan here, but I'm really on this huge Florrie thing right now. Etoile Black, in my head I always pictured her as a late bloomer, but also as slightly "trampled on", which made it seem like she "blossomed" all that much more. I dunno if that makes sense. Anyway, here it is!**

***PS, I use the word 'oriental' here but just in case people get offended, it's because this is the 1970s, we're in the UK, and neither of these settings call for much political-correction. I just wanted to stay with the times, with the characters. But if people are really offended, I'll change it. Just let me know!  
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* * *

><p>Florence threw her hair up into a loose bun as Rosier watched her from the other side of the room, his eyes following her every movement, even as he lit a cigarette without so much as glancing at the pack. She watched, stunned, as he grasped it by the unfiltered tip and blue tendrils of smoke began to slowly to waft into the air. Her breath hitched as she recalled his grip on her chin yesterday, and the violent brush of his thumb against her lips. Instinctively, she licked her her bottom lip. They'd still been chafed this morning from his little trick, but she'd applied salve to them throughout the day and the skin had regenerated. All that was left of the burn was in her mind. The way Rosier was looking at her now made her think that he would quite like to try it again.<p>

She took another step back despite the fact that he was not even within stepping distance of her, then let out a grunt of surprise as she hit the ledge of one of the broken old beds. She plopped down on it after a moment's hesitation, wincing as she hit the flat, hard surface of the ancient mattress, flattened by years of use and disuse. An uncomfortable silence settled between them once she stopped fidgeting, silencing the creaking of the bed. She swallowed nervously and stared at her boots.

Evan smoked silently and purposefully as he mulled over his words. He would have to speak carefully, he decided, because whatever happened in the next thirty seconds would undoubtedly set the tone for the rest of their Hogwarts years, even if they never ended up speaking to each other ever again. Of course, as these things usually go, they both started speaking at once, and then simultaneously fell silent in order to let the other speak. The result was another awkward silence, and Evan felt his irritation swell once again.

Concealing his discomfort, he demanded coolly, "What did Dumbledore have to say to you?"

Evidently grateful at having something to talk about but unable to formulate her words, Kim stuttered out some ridiculously short, roundabout summary of her meeting with the old headmaster, her story falling flat after a few harried sentences, leaving them to stare at each other again in that horrendously awkward fashion. They hadn't looked each other in the eye once, and Evan wanted to curse in frustration. When had she become such a bloody door mouse?

Of course, he thought stupidly. She _was_ a bloody door mouse. Always had been, and probably always would be. He'd gotten used to actually hearing her speak over the past few years, and realized that he was probably one of the few unfortunate souls who could recognize her voice out of a crowd. And yet it grated on his nerves that she refused to look at him now, that she was being so damn... well, mousy. Was this how she was with other people? But of course it was. When had she ever spoken in class? He'd never seen her utter a word to anybody other than to her two Hufflepuff brutes. If it annoyed him when she argued with him in private, this awkward silence was infinitely worse. He wanted her to speak, to defend herself, to exchange insults with him. Anything would have been an improvement on their present situation.

Finally, he drawled out as humorlessly and as business-like as possible, "Alright, let's just cut to the chase." He drew in a last drag off his cigarette and deliberately put it out against his callused, nerve-damaged fingertips with a firm pinch. It went out with a hiss. Painless. Unlike this conversation. Or rather, lack thereof. Trying not to die of embarrassment, he opened his mouth and said stiffly, "Last night -

"Last night was a mistake," she blurted out, cutting him off mid-sentence.

He lobbed her an icy glare, which went unnoticed due to the fact that her gaze was permanently fixed on an invisible speck on her shoe.

"A mistake," he repeated flatly, his nose flaring slightly in surprised anger. She nodded violently to herself, eyes still fixed resolutely to the floor and he sucked in a breath, offended. Did Florence Kim just refer to him as a mistake?

"Obviously it won't happen again", she continued hurriedly without looking up. "I mean, nothing worth writing home about, right?" she laughed shrilly. She startled him by looking up suddenly and giving him a forced smile. "So - so if we can just move on from that, you know, forget that anything even happened - not that I'm saying anything _did_ happen, it was no big deal, really - then we can, you know, keep working together, right?"

Florence knew she was babbling, but she couldn't help herself. It was either that or choke, and she couldn't stomach the thought of sitting there in awkward silence with him for a moment longer. While she knew that it angered him when she cut him off, she had to make it clear to him that she wasn't going to make a big deal about it - that they could pretend nothing ever happened and go back to their old partnership. That they _needed_ to get back to their old partnership.

Evan stared down at her, and he was acutely aware that the muscle above his left eye was twitching and that his nostrils were flared so wide that a broomstick could have easily fit. _A mistake? Nothing worth writing home about? _ Had he seriously just been dismissed by this - this mudblood as nothing? _No big deal_?

He knew he was thinking like a fool, and this only angered him further. Technically, he'd been about to say the exact same thing to her, and really, everything would have worked out if she hadn't gone and cut him off... Because it was one thing to dismiss a mudblood. It was another thing altogether to be dumped aside by one. He tried to step back from himself, to reassess the situation before he said or did something stupid, but it was too late. Horrified, he found himself stepping towards her, jaw clenched, and heard his footsteps resounding loudly throughout the chamber.

She leaned back as far away from him as possible as he approached her, one long step at a time, his dark eyes fixed upon her face with a startling, feral glint. The rest of his expression was a blank slate as usual, but she could see that his lips were pressed into a thin line of displeasure. When at last he bore down upon her, she made to stand up, to scramble away from him before he came any closer, but he pushed her back down onto the bed, his hands burning into her shoulder through her robes, past her shirt and scorching her flesh as though they'd just made skin-on-skin contact. She wanted to tear her gaze away from him, but knew that if she did, he would only snatch her by the chin and force her to look at him. Instead, she drew her legs up and cocooned herself into her robes to avoid having to touch him, for he was now standing at the foot of the bed, towering over her with displeasure growing in his eyes.

A bed was, Evan decided with practical detachment, an all too intimate setting to hold this kind of conversation. As he stared down at Kim, his mind flashed to the image of her two nights previous, when she'd been asleep in Ravenclaw Tower and he... well, had been wide awake. Though she'd now wrapped herself into a tight little ball made of robes, his mouth went dry as he pictured her as she was last night, her hair up in a messy bun as it was now. He'd kissed her. And she'd kissed him back. And they'd nearly been caught. Actually, they _had_ been caught. And here they were now, and he wanted to do nothing more than to tear those stupid robes off her and do it all again.

There had to be some way to regain control over this situation, he thought desperately. Look at how ugly she is, he shouted silently to himself. But it didn't matter. His blood was fairly humming with heat. He could sense the growing tension in her body, could practically see her pupils dilate as she focused her gaze onto the ground and forced her breathing to remain steady. It occurred to him with much horror and mortification that he'd stood there for the last thirty seconds, staring at her like some addled imbecile without saying so much as a word, and that his own treacherous body was most certainly betraying the same tension. The only thing that could have made this any worse was if he started mouth-breathing.

This was her fault too, he decided angrily. She should have moved by now, shoved past him when he pushed her back down onto the bed (what the fuck had been thinking!?), ought to have said something at the very least instead of sitting there gawking at him with those wide, warm almond-shaped eyes that were radiating sheer want. Merlin, she was so bloody _gauche_. She probably wasn't even aware of how much she was radiating _want_. He snorted.

The moment of silence seemed to stretch on forever. Just as Florence was certain that time had stopped and the world had frozen, he spoke.

"A mistake," he said roughly for the second time, his expression haughty and stiff.

He was angry, Florence thought in dismay. But what right did he have to be bloody angry? She'd taken the heat for everything, his name hadn't even figured once on anybody's lips. And he was the one who'd seduced her, after everything! And for the most absurd reason... She shuddered in disgust, just thinking about Avery and Mulciber and their cold, leering gazes and nasty wandering hands. Exotic Playwizard indeed! But she had to keep her cool. This was _not_ the time to test his temper. They hadn't crossed paths once since three days ago, and though things had taken an insane turn in those seventy-two hours, she had to keep a hold of him now that they were actually here together, talking. She couldn't afford not to.

Sucking in her pride and fighting back her embarrassment, she opened her mouth to speak but found that her mouth was horribly dry. She bit her lip and exhaled sharply. Why did she have to choke now? _Just answer him! Anything!_

But she couldn't. Words failed her. Her mind drew blanks, and all she could see were his lips, drawn ever so tightly into that thin disapproving line. Those lips had traced a scorching path down her collarbones yesterday. She could still feel them on her. The second she'd opened her mouth to him, he hadn't wasted any time in undoing her cloak and then the buttons of her blouse, and she'd let him. His touch had been scorching, and it was as though she'd lost sense of herself with each stroke of his rough palms and fingertips.

Though more and more often these days she'd begun to feel the effects of puberty on her hormones, she hadn't dared do anything about it to relieve the pressure. The girls in her dorm giggled about their boyfriends and the things they did to one another; Florence hadn't dared think about anything related to sex, because she was afraid of her dangerous infatuation with Rosier. Afraid that he might find out... which he obviously had, and exploited. When he'd ambushed her the previous night, she'd known exactly where those lips were headed as his fingers had wreaked havoc on her breasts when Bertha Jorkins had appeared. She'd _wanted_ it to happen. She'd been horrifyingly easy. He'd seduced her, and it hadn't even been an effort. One kiss and she'd let him all the way to second base. She was almost certain that if Jorkins hadn't appeared, she would have even let him do the deed if he'd felt so inclined.

Had he been inclined? _Was_ he so inclined?

Damned if he knew the answer himself.

No. That was a lie if he ever knew one. Whatever she was thinking of, it had made her visibly tense up - more so than she already was if such a thing were even possible - and her face had taken on an interesting shade of puce. If there had been tension in the air before, he could now quite confidently say there was now no longer _any _air left to speak of.

"A mistake," he heard himself repeat, his voice slightly rough. He blamed it on the cigarette. "I've never kissed anybody by mistake in my life." He paused to clear his voice, and gave her the slightest of smirks that conveyed some sort of vague sense of amusement, despite the fact that he was anything but amused. "Avery and Mulciber have, as usual, proven their lack of refinement," he drawled, turning on his heel after giving her a dismissive once-over. "A look at your tits is hardly worth a dementor's kiss."

And with that, for the first time in his life, Evan Rosier fled from an uncomfortable scene.

Oh, it was dignified as far as flights went, but it was a flight nevertheless. Several minutes later, he could still feel the warmth of her body against his palms from when he'd pushed her back onto the bed, and the burn of her stare as he'd sauntered out of the room.

* * *

><p>If Florence could draw up a list of her most embarrassing moments, crying in Myrtle's bathroom after catching sight of Evan - no, <em>Rosier<em> - swapping saliva with Lucille Devalle a week later was probably right up there at slot number one.

Well, close. It shared the throne with having her 'tits' insulted by the only boy who'd ever gotten close enough to touch them.

But still. The waterworks had sprung out of nowhere, which was the worst feeling in the world. Evan - Rosier, dammit - hadn't looked at her twice since he'd left her alone in the Room after looking at her as though she made his skin crawl (which she probably did). Though she'd spent three months previous to that convincing herself there could never be anything between them, the slow burn of his body against hers on that one occasion had ignited an unconscious hope inside her that was hard to dash out despite his cruelty... Which was ridiculous, because she _knew_ he would never be attracted to her. And even if she were to suddenly become some beautiful swan overnight, even then she would never be good enough for him. She wasn't _pure_. Beyond that, she wasn't even sure if he could ever _like_ her as a person. And how could she blame him? In all honesty, she hated herself half the time anyway. The entire situation was a joke.

But the real cherry on the cake was seeing him in action, his thumb brushing against Devalle's perfectly plump, pouty lips, hearing her let out a little moan as his other hand had gripped her from behind. They'd been up against a tapestry on the second floor, slightly hidden by a large statue of Agatha in Agony. And of course, he'd seen her despite her attempt to pass them by as discreetly as possible. His eyes had chosen that precise moment to lock with hers and they'd been cold, emotionless and taunting. She'd felt him watching her all the way down the corridor. When she'd turned the corner, she'd broke into a run because it didn't take a genius to guess that the hot lump in her throat indicated that there would soon be tears.

After a two-minute cry, she'd washed her face and had felt intensely better. Empty, but better. It was almost satisfying in a way, proving herself right - that she and Evan - Rosier - could never be together. And so she'd gone on with her day. After all, how much lower could she sink? In that moment of weakness, she'd literally hit rock-bottom. She was still the social pariah of the week - at least, until some other poor fool usurped her by getting caught at something even more absurd - and she'd cried over a boy. A boy who literally hated her because of her origins. Oh, and of course, she had also lost her only source of income in the process. Things could hardly get worse, could they?

And so from rock-bottom, things began to look up. From that very day forward, Florence decided that she was going to be a new girl. Briskly, she decided that she'd wept over a boy for the first and last time. Fine. It was acceptable. All girls had to cry over unrequited love at some point, didn't they? As for the lost income... Well, she thought with a cold shudder, there was always a way to make money. How many lewd propositions had she been offered by the neighbourhood thugs this past summer when she worked at her parents' shop?

But that would be a last resort, she swore silently to herself, pretending that she hadn't taken gold from Rosier before letting him cop a feel. For now, at the very least she could focus on school and hope for a better future. And a better future started with better hair. Just the thought of hitting the showers after class brought a smile to her face. Her dormmates could go fuck themselves, she decided sternly as she made her way to class. She was going to have a bloody shower, and if anybody wanted to get in her way, they would have to deal with the pointy end of her wand first. Hell, she'd already been dragged to the headmaster's office once this month. What was a second time?

_Let's not get ahead of ourselves_, said a sarcastic voice in the back of her head. Florence gleefully ignored it. She was done being... what had McDowell called her the other day? A mouse.

McDowell, Florence thought with a sudden frown. There was another issue she would have to deal with sooner or later. Coming under his radar was probably one of the most surprising and unwanted things that could have happened to her. It wasn't that he was a bad sort, but he was Head Boy, and now that he actually noticed her, he'd begun to notice her _absence_. When she'd sneaked back into the common room the other night, she could have sworn he hadn't even seen her. After all, he never had before. And then, just as she was making her way up towards the girl's dorm as silently as, well, a mouse, he'd called her name out from across the empty common room.

"Didn't think you were going sneak by without saying hello, did you Kim?" he'd drawled, rising up from his seat by the fireplace, where he'd been sitting, reading in silence.

"I - er -

"Where are you coming from at this hour?" he asked sternly, causing her heart to beat in triple-time. "You _are_ aware that I am head boy? And that I'm _supposed _to be impartial when it comes to dealing with rule transgressions?"

Again, she hadn't known what to say, and so her lips had remained sealed.

"Don't talk much do you?" he'd snorted.

"Erm..."

"Alright, mouse," he sighed, "I'm letting you off this time. Just don't let me catch you at it again. Or if I do, you could at least say hello. I don't bite, you know." Then he'd paused, mulling over his words with a little smirk. "Much."

She'd literally let out a squeak of embarrassment, causing him to let out peals of laughter.

"Go to bed, mouse, it's late and the cats are out to play. Next time I won't be so nice. And next time, since I assume there will be a next time, you'll have to tell me where it is you've been sneaking in from so late all week, hm?"

She'd dashed up the stairs, two steps at a time after that, her heart pounding wildly in her chest. Undoubtedly, being caught by the head boy was a nerve-wracking experience. She would have to be infinitely more diligent now that it seemed he was aware of her movements. Were he to one day follow her into the Room... she shuddered to even think about it.

Yes. She would certainly have to watch herself around McDowell. Her luck had been running rather high this week for somebody who'd never had a run-in with the 'authorities' before. First Dumbledore had let her off, and now McDowell... But no. Things could not possibly get worse than they had when she'd bawled in Myrtle's bathroom. As of right now, things were going to be better. She would make sure of it.

* * *

><p>Evan's life was not going according to plan.<p>

Well, it wasn't that he'd had a plan exactly, but no matter how many different ways he'd envisioned his life at sixteen, _this_ had never been a possibility.

To begin with, his sixteenth birthday had more or less gone unnoticed by anybody except for his mother and his grandmother. Evan didn't normally consider himself a childish person, but quite frankly it prickled his nerves that his existence had been forgotten by his immediate friends and family, and it further prickled his nerves that he'd been prickled by such a thing in the first place. Even Felix and Célèste, who were both still at Hogwarts with him hadn't bothered to greet him with anything more than the usual nod. Granted, it was midterm week and everybody was overloaded with the usual rubbish...

On the other hand, his surviving grandmother had bequeathed him the Bordeaux townhouse as a gift... It wasn't much, considering the size of the family estate, but then again it was one of the only non-entailed properties in the family; as a fourth son, it was more than he could have hoped to have gained in terms of actual property, considering Alex's extravagant spending habits. In fact, speaking of Alex, Evan would no doubt have an earful to listen to when Easter holidays came rolling around... it had never sat well with his other siblings that he was the favourite with their mother and grandmother. Evan was well aware that none of his older brothers had received a property for _their _sixteenth birthdays... though arguably, Alex had received the best birthday gift of all only this past year - their father's untimely demise following a night of excessive drinking, eating and fucking - and the entire family estate with the exception of his siblings' and mother's allowancesm and the non-entailed properties still held by their grandmother.

But still! His own siblings had forgotten his bloody birthday! Even Célèste and Felix, who he saw on a daily basis, hadn't remembered until a few days later. As for his friends... well, Evan thought with a small frown, he would be hard-pressed to call them _friends_. They were certainly not the sort of people he would trust with his life. He could at least excuse _them_ for not remembering.

And then speaking of Felix... Evan couldn't help but noticing that he wasn't looking so well these days. Was he spending too many nights projecting? Or was it something else? They'd all been raised in fear of the dreaded Faust's Disease as children, but when they'd all made it to eleven without dying, it was as though they'd been released from shackles. The scars were still there, but they'd one by one stopped carrying that fear of death with them as they had throughout childhood. But adult-onset Faust's wasn't impossible... and they'd all been taught to look out for the signs just in case. Were the bags under Felix' eyes pointing at something? Even more worrisome was the sudden nosebleed that had occurred in the middle of the common room just the other night. To be fair, Felix _did_ have a little bit of a recreational coke habit on the weekends, and midterms had just come to an end... but regardless, Evan couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong. Being around Felix put him on edge now. It was like being a child again, when every nosebleed and every cough had warranted the immediate attention of a healer and bed-rest for a week. They'd all learned to downplay any injuries and illnesses around their mother and father, but tip-toeing around the fear of death was a wearisome activity. Neither Evan nor Célèste had dared ask Felix how he was feeling, though they'd briefly talked about it amongst themselves and had come to the same conclusion. They didn't _want_ to know.

But suspecting Felix of Faust's had once again driven Evan's need to experiment, and therein arose another problem.

Kim.

They hadn't spoken to each other in well over a month, but she was always there, buzzing around in the back of his mind like an irritating, invisible fly. He _needed_ to experiment, and he needed _her_ to experiment on. And though he had not been Fixed to her since the night she'd taken the BCP, he was certain that she hadn't kicked whatever infatuation she had with him... it was a gut feeling, at any rate... and as long as _that_ was still around, he didn't dare go near her because then _he_ went into lusty overdrive in reaction to her response to his presence. While his projections had gotten better these past few months, he was still hyper-sensitive to those around him. Valentine's Day had been a nightmare - he'd spent the entire Hogsmeade outing avoiding the general public for fear of springing a hard-on at random, and he hadn't even gotten to shag at all. His usual go-to girls had gotten it into their heads that for at least one day of the year, they wanted some sort of grand romantic gesture, and it had been obvious to them that Evan wasn't going to offer that. And so he'd spent the night alone in the Room, painting and getting high.

So yes, he didn't think it was at all an exaggeration to avoid Florence Kim until she could look him in the eye without her face erupting in flames. The last thing he wanted to do was to give her the impression that he actually felt something for her (which he bloody well didn't)! But still. That didn't solve his dilemma at all. What was he to do about experimentation?

And then there was the fact that she just seemed to be _everywhere_, all the fucking time. Avoiding her was actually a task. Before, he'd simply gone on with his day without seeing her - she'd literally been a part of the background despite sharing half her classes with him. But suddenly she was on everybody's lips, and he couldn't _help_ but notice her.

To begin with, she seemed to have gotten chummy with Remus Lupin seemingly overnight. They were always in the library together now, and while she was still permanently attached to her Sinclair and Kennedy for the most part, Lupin had become some sort of honorary loser by association. Evan had seen the four of them playing Exploding Snap a few times in an abandoned classroom like they'd always been friends. Then naturally he still ran into her in the Room on occasion despite each of them trying to stick to their original schedule from third year as much as possible... those always made for awkward encounters, but usually she turned and walked out without so much as a word, or vice-verse. Even more noteworthy was the fact that she'd also suddenly attracted the attention of the Head Boy, Joel McDowell. This was something that most people (including Kim) didn't seem to have picked up on, but Evan had immediately realized when he'd passed them in a corridor one evening. And how could he bloody not? McDowell's interest was subtle - probably even unconscious - but Evan's sixth-sense had latched onto it and it had put his hairs on end with disgust.

What was McDowell doing around Kim anyway? The seventh year was way out of her league, and Kim wasn't even good-looking most of the time.

Most of the time. Evan's brow furrowed slightly as he pondered over his word choice. It occurred to him then that there was perhaps some justification behind it - something was different about her these days. Perhaps it was the way she looked, or the way she carried herself, but something had changed. She was more... visible. Perhaps it was both - never would he have expected her to go and make a new _friend_. Certainly not Lupin of all people. He examined her furtively out of the corner of his eye, and twirled his quill impatiently about his fingers as he tried to figure it out. But it was only when she turned her head slightly to whisper something to Sinclair that he figured out what it was.

It was the hair.

Normally, she tended to favour a lazy hairstyle (that was to say none at all) choosing to wear it long and limp with her fringe hanging low in her eyes. Then there had been that infamous disaster with her housemates the previous year, and he remembered all too well that she'd gone around bald for an entire three days. He cringed just at the memory of it. She'd looked absolutely wretched - not a single hair had adorned her head, not even an eyelash, and she'd been inflicted with a moderate case of spots at the time too. Not her finest moment, though people had found it hilarious at the time. Evan had been revolted - he'd had to _look _at her for three days, because they'd been in the middle of experimenting at the time. But it was, he realized, the hair that made the big difference... to begin with, she actually _had_ hair. Second, it seemed... clean. Third, it was pulled back for once, just like when he'd been Fixed to her, and then the following night when they'd been snogging by the Greenhouses. Fourth, one could actually see her face, and now that she had eyebrows and lashes again, it wasn't half bad as far as faces went. Critically, he thought she could probably do with some makeup and a small application of bubotuber pus, with which he himself was irritatingly familiar, but overall she was okay... and in fact, that wasn't even entirely it. His frown deepened slightly as he tried to puzzle it out. And then it him. It was the eyebrows. She'd done something with the eyebrows. They hadn't looked like that before.

Uncomfortably aware that Rosier was glaring at her, Florence kept her eyes glued to her textbook as she pretended to make use of the Study Period. How she loathed Study Periods! But they were a part of the upper-years' timetable because of OWL and NEWT prep, and when McGonagall was supervisor, one did not shirk from one's studies. Only, how was she supposed to focus on her notes when Rosier was busy boring a hole into the side of her head? He wasn't even being discreet about it. Feeling terribly self-conscious, she reached up and undid her bun, allowing her hair to fall back into her face. Though she'd sworn to herself after her first shampoo that she would never wear her hair down again, it hadn't occurred to her at the time how accustomed she was to hiding behind it. Nice as it was, having it up from time to time without wincing in pain, it also left her feeling terribly exposed like she was now. In fact, if Rosier didn't stop staring, somebody would be bound to say something...

And then she remembered what she had done to her eyebrows, and her hands flew to her face in mortification.

She'd butchered them, of course. At least, she had at first... Never having plucked her eyebrows before, she'd forced herself to stand in front of the mirror for the better part of an hour as she'd grimaced her way through shaping it down. Then she'd stepped back, and had nearly given herself a heart attack; her brow-job was ghastly. It was as bad as it was when it was overgrown - only this time, they were too thin and horrendously crooked. What had looked okay from up close looked like a circus-job from afar. Luckily, a quick growth charm had reverted her back to their usual bushy state - but by that point, she'd been too afraid to tackle them on her own. The next day she'd eventually bullied Will and Val into doing it for her, and the result had not been... terrible. Or so she thought. Rosier's glower was making her think otherwise.

Luckily, the bell finally rang, signalling the end of the period, and all the fifth years rose with a collective sigh of relief. What torture! It was one thing to study on one's own in the library or wherever, but there was something about being supervised like an infant when surrounded by dozens of other fifteen-year-olds that gave her no inclination to study whatsoever.

"Hey," said a familiar voice, bringing a smile to Florence's face.

"Remus," she, Will and Val chorused.

It was funny, Florence mused as the boys chit-chatted about this and that. Never would she have expected Remus Lupin to befriend her. But after running into him in the Hospital Wing the day she'd consulted Pomfrey, he seemed to have taken it for granted that they were thenceforth acquainted. She, Will and Val had literally looked back over their shoulders when he'd waved at her in the Great Hall the next day. Lupin still teased them about it from time to time. It was a running joke now that whenever they waved at each other, they'd look over their shoulders.

"So," said Remus, suddenly prodding Florence in the arm. "What do you think?"

"Er, about what?" said Florence dumbly, face flushing slightly in embarrassment.

"About what, she says," said Val theatrically. He turned to Remus with a serious expression on his face. "I think you ought to revoke the invitation, since she obviously doesn't value your friendship enough to give you the time of day." He tutted in disapproval. "Give a bird some nice hair and some new eyebrows and suddenly she's too good for you!"

"Oh shut up," Florence muttered self-consciously.

"Well you do look quite nice," Remus offered awkwardly. Will and Val guffawed loudly and Florence glared at them.

"Remus and Florence, sitting in a tree -

"Oi, what's this about Moony and Kim?"

All four of them stiffened, and Florence swallowed back a gasp of horror as she turned around ever so slowly.

It was, of course, none other than Sirius Black, come to pester them all.

Black looked down at her, his left eyebrow perfectly arched enough to express his curiosity. She'd never been so close to him except for when he'd rudely brushed past her in Dumbledore's office all those weeks ago. Her heart hammered in her chest, from both anger and fascination.

Anger, because _he'd_ been so offended at having his precious name associated with her. Fascination because he was so very obviously related to Evan - Rosier - in some way.

_How_ had nobody else come to the appropriate conclusion? Granted, Black was rather fair while Evan always seemed slightly sun-kissed... but They were both about the same height, being slightly taller than average, they had the same heavily-lidded eyes surrounded by sooty lashes long and curled enough to be feminine (though Black's were grey, Evan's a mahogany), a similar bone-structure... though she knew that they were quite distant cousins, there was still a resemblance nevertheless. And the way they carried themselves was so bloody similar it was scary. Even the expression - there was something strangely closed off about Black's eyes despite the mischievous grin on his face.

Realizing that she'd been gawking like a third year, Florence pursed her lips and looked away. She had nothing to say to him. Nothing at all.

But Black seemed determined to goad her. With a slight smirk, further reminiscent of Evan, he said laughingly, "What's this _Florence_, first me, now Remus - you're just a heart breaker, aren't you? Who's next? Peter? James? You'll have to beat Evans down first, though, otherwise Prongs wouldn't look twice at you..."

The boys snickered, and Florence shot Will and Val an acidic look, slightly hurt by their betrayal. Black was making fun of her and they _laughed_? Even Remus had let out a cough, but he'd vehemently denied the accusation. Of course he had. Who would want their name to be dragged about with hers in the mud? Cheeks blazing in anger and mortification, she drew in a sharp breath and turned on her heel. She didn't have to listen to this. She had things to do anyway. _You've already hit rock-bottom, _she reminded herself. _Everything's only getting better. And if they aren't, _you_ have to make it better_.

Fuming, she ignored her friends' calls and Black's echoing voice as he stupidly wondered what he'd done wrong. Callous bastard. He personified exactly what she hated about Gryffindors. They always bandied about the fact that they were such chivalrous, daring little snots. But in reality, they were just as horrible as anybody else. The hypocrisy almost made it worse. In fact, the houses were bloody stupid, in her personal opinion. Everybody was a right cunt. The Hufflepuffs professed loyalty and all that, but to anybody they perceived as an outsider, they closed ranks and could be as cold as any Slytherin. Hell, even Will and Val sometimes ganged up on her whenever the argued, or dismissed her as "just a Ravenclaw" who "wouldn't understand". Nobody was innocent. In the end, everybody looked out for their own. It was just a matter of determining who they considered to be a part of "their own".

* * *

><p>Evan was in the middle of changing into his painting clothes when the door burst open and Kim barged through the room like an elephant hellbent on destruction.<p>

"OUT!" Evan snapped furiously, horrified to have been caught in a state of undress. What the _hell_ was she doing here? It was his bloody day! Classes had just ended - she didn't even have the excuse that she was coming here to sleep, as he knew she was wont to do from time to time.

"Look," she said, her voice strangely calm and articulate for once, "We need to talk. Properly."

Her face was turned, and her cheeks were pink, but judging by the clenching of her fists, he realized that she wasn't about to go anywhere. Not this time.

"What are you doing here?" he hissed, striding towards her, his anger and surprise causing him to forget that he'd been trying to avoid her. He heard her let out a shallow breath of air as he pushed her against the wall.

"I - you - could you _please_ put on a shirt?" she said, refusing to look at him.

He laughed in her face.

"Why? Does it bother you? This is _my_ time. _You_ barged in here unannounced. And look at me when I'm speaking to you."

God, this was too easy. Evan was surprised to find that he was actually amused, his embarrassment over having kissed her all but evaporated at how quickly she wilted in his presence. It was the most pathetic thing he'd ever witnessed.

What _had_ she come in here for, anyhow? She'd been so confident, so blustering with self-righteousness a minute ago. And now she was cowed by the sight of him shirtless. Granted, his own heart was beating faster and faster, and he could feel the all-too familiar stirrings of desire low in his gut, but he was surprisingly distant from it all. In control. Quite unlike the last time they'd met like this.

He wanted to play.

What a novel desire.

Play with the mudblood, he mused. Was it really so different from torturing her in other ways? This was almost better. If he yelled, she usually yelled back. If he shoved, she shoved back. Well. He'd kissed her, and she'd kissed back, but that was different. This time, he wouldn't go that far. He could just stand there as he was doing now, and he was convinced that in a second or two, she would begin to squirm. Why was he feeling so empowered all of a sudden? Perhaps he was finally gaining control over this incubus business. It was about bloody time!

Well. He wanted to experiment. This was the perfect occasion. Just how far could he push her - and himself - before he snapped despite everything and attempted to maul her?

In a deliberately low voice, he said (in an admittedly non-deliberately raspy tone), "Look at me before I make you."

Nothing unusual there, he thought clinically. Step one. Stick to the usual. Wasn't he forever forcing her chin up? And so predictably, her gaze refused to budge. He reached out and took her by the chin. Step two. Measure her reaction. Her face was red. Eyes glazed. Breathing, definitely shallow. He wanted to smile, but held it back. _So easy_.

"What are you doing here?" he demanded. Step three. Stare into her eyes. She was panicking, but enraptured. This was getting hilarious.

"I - I said we have to talk," she stammered. Then, boldly, she pushed him back. _Oh shit_. This time, it was his turn to stumble as the tips of her fingers brushed against the smattering of curls on his chest. Too much. Too fast. Obviously he didn't have _that_ much control over himself. Yet. This wasn't too bad. She was worse off. Her face had taken on a deeper shade of puce as she'd registered the fact that she'd just touched his bare chest. He choked back a snicker. Florence Kim was so virginal she made the Madonna look like a downright heathen.

"It's my day. What was so important that you decided to interrupt _me_, when I've _expressly_ informed you that you weren't to come here unless scheduled?"

"But that's exactly the problem!" she burst out.

He raised an eyebrow, and for some reason she suddenly looked angry.

"Oh screw you and your stupid eyebrow."

His eyebrow lofted up even higher.

"What does my eyebrow have anything to do with this?"

"What?" she snapped, clearly frustrated. "Nothing! I - look, I know it's your bloody day but I just - we just need to put everything behind us and move on. There's some really interesting stuff we - _you_ could be working on, and..." she stopped, her voice running out of steam. "And I just think it's really stupid that you're wasting all this time when you could be experimenting with me. I mean, on me. Oh merlin. Look, you know what I mean!"

He was laughing at her. He was actually laughing at her. If she had a camera, she would have taken a picture. Oh, his lips didn't break from that thin white line once, but for once, his dark gaze had defrosted and she just _knew_ he was making fun of her. Just like everybody else. Fury mounted.

She was going to blow her head off if her face got any redder, Evan mused. She was actually shaking. Lust had taken a back seat, and anger had taken over. And the angrier she got, the more in control he felt. _This _was living. Having somebody under his thumb made him feel so alive. And nobody was easier to control than Kim. She was a _child_.

_Not with those tits, she's not_, a small voice sang in the back of his head.

Instinctively, Evan looked down. Sure enough, her robes were open today. Hm. Maybe change was subtle. Little things like that probably contributed to the general aura around her that made her just a little bit more attractive these days. Or a lot more, if one got close enough to glimpse down her shirt. It strained slightly across her chest, and he recalled with brutal suddenness how he had skimmed his lips across the top of her breasts. Her skin had been covered in goosebumps from the cold. He'd been able to make out her nipples by touch through the cheap fabric of her bra. His blood suddenly ran hot. _Abort, abort, abort_! He was no longer in control. He'd pushed too far. Things had gone from funny to serious within the blink of an eye.

"What are you doing here," he said tonelessly again. "And be _very_ clear with me," he added, his expression no longer humorous.

She moved to take a step back, but realized she was already pressed against the wall. Struggling to compose herself, she said in a small voice, "I need money."

He snorted.

"What else is new?"

Just what exactly did she _do _with all the money he gave her? It occurred to him suddenly that he'd never asked himself that question. With most girls, the answer would have been obvious. Only in this case, Evan found that he actually had no idea. Kim didn't spend money, it seemed. He would bet his entire month's allowance that she'd not bought herself a new uniform since first year. He looked down, and saw that her robes did indeed come to a stop mid-shin, closer to her knees. Robes were normally flowing. Hers fit like a loose cardigan over her shoulders - loose, but not loose enough. Was she really so poor? Was such poverty even possible?

Or perhaps she was miserly. Weren't orientals said to hang tight to their purses? What was she again, anyway? All he could remember was that she wasn't Chinese. He'd asked her once to read a text for her, and she'd called him an "ignorant arse" for assuming that she was a capable of doing so. It hadn't occurred to him then to find out where she'd come from. Her grimy street accent, which she slipped into whenever she was in a rage, didn't betray her origins other than somewhere in East London.

"What are you?"

The question came out before he could even realized he was speaking.

"What?"

He'd asked the question. Might as well follow through.

"You're not Chinese, so you must be..."

Her lips curled disdainfully. A touchy question.

"I'm Korean," she snapped. "Not that it's any of your business."

"Huh."

Korean. What were Korean sorcerers known for? Not that it mattered... she was a mudblood. But she could read Korean, couldn't she? Could she?

"Can you read it?" he demanded, trying to keep the excitement from his voice. A new language could open up an entire new approach to his studies. Oriental magic was exactly the sort of thing that could help him. His heart beat rapidly, now for an altogether different reason. He was back in control. It was exhilarating. English, French, Romani, Ancient Runes - now Korean.

"Can you read it?" he snapped, when she didn't answer him immediately.

"I - yes," she said hesitantly. "Sort of. I mean, I can, but it depends what you want me to read... I - I was rather young when I left."

That certainly put a damper on his excitement. But then... she could speak it, couldn't she? That was almost just as good. He asked her. She nodded, looking strangely miserable.

Were there a lot of Koreans in the UK these days? What about in France? Probably none in his home country. She was, admittedly, the first he'd ever met. If so, how many of them were witches and wizards? Were there any purebloods amongst them? He knew how important blood and even racial purity was amongst the Chinese and the Indian immigrants... surely it was the same amongst Koreans? And they valued tradition, unlike western magical practice. He shivered at the thought of how much unrecorded magic was being handed down from generation to generation. Faust's was rare, despite its over-prevalence in his own family, but there were reported cases of it in other families... Did somebody out there know _something_? His grandmother was in the process of passing down all the old spells to him, but so many of them had been lost to time. Especially if they weren't written down... and though she'd taught him some interesting things, Faust's had never been reported amongst her people. She'd been horrified when her second child hadn't lived past his eighth birthday. Evan's father had been the only surviving child. She hadn't wanted anymore children after learning the secret horrors that were hidden in the Rosier blood.

Florence was exhausted when Evan finished questioning her. He was a strange boy, she thought not for the first time. She'd never seen anybody swing from spectrum to spectrum like did, except for her mother, but it wasn't at all the same. Her mother was volatile. Explosive. Uncontrollable, though she sought to control those around her. Though Evan too sought to control everything around him, he was also master of himself. Quick to anger? Yes, she thought, he was. But he was very disciplined at the same time. He was very careful as to when he lashed out and to what extent. Granted, he didn't censure his anger much around her, she'd seen him in public. He was unreadable. Not a twitch, despite the fact that surely the things people said or did around him grated on his nerves. And even in private with her, his reactions were always so very... calculated. It was probably the only reason why she literally trusted him with her life. He could be counted on to perform a spell exactly so, to brew a potion just right. It was almost like madness, she thought suddenly, the way he sometimes went at magic. He recorded every little detail. He'd thrown out entire vats of potions because they'd brewed a split second too long, or the room's temperature had slipped just a notch.

The way he questioned her was much the same. Relentless, prodding, an attack from every angle. He wanted to know the alphabet, how to pronounce everything, the culture... he'd even drilled her on her background, but she'd refused to budge on hadn't gone over well with him, and so he'd repeated the question over and over again like some sort of CIA torturer until she'd caved. Granted, she hadn't told him everything, and she swore to herself that she never would, but she told him what she knew about her grandparents and the villages where they'd come from. He'd been disappointed. She hadn't known much.

What did he want with all that information? She remembered he'd once asked her to translate a passage from some ancient Chinese manuscript he'd dredged up from the Library's Restricted Section. What was he looking for?

He'd never shared his research goals with her, but as time went by, she'd understood that he was looking for something. Everything he studied, everything he experimented on either had some sort of nefarious purpose intended to maim in some way or other. Or, it had to do with blood magic. She hadn't even known what blood magic was back in third year. Now, she could probably write a uni-level dissertation on it. And yet he wasn't satisfied. Well, neither was she, to be honest. It was fascinating stuff. Muggles had genetics. Witches and wizards had blood magic. Now if the two of them were to be applied together...

Florence shook her head. Evan would never agree to learning muggle sciences. She hadn't learned much of science because she'd stopped her muggle schooling when she was admitted to Hogwarts. But she remembered a trip they'd taken when she was in Junior School to the Science Museum, where she'd first learned about genetics. She'd flipped through some of her older brother's school books since then, and had learned a little bit of this and a little bit of that. At the time, it was because she'd been bored at home, or at the shop, and Michael always left his books and notes lying around. But now that she thought about it... the two of subjects were rather complementary. If anything, she would have to find ways of incorporating the topics without him catching on.

Face flushed with excitement, she asked slowly, "What do you about hemophilia?"


End file.
